Page 6 - Brian Tilbrook - Post Magazine 13-02-22

PROFILE

Opposite page:
Tilbrook at home
on Lamma Island.
Far left: with
wife Moyreen.
Left: works by
Tilbrook. Pictures:
Xiaomei Chen

a production of The Merchant of Venice, the first of perfect as you could want.” He became a follower of the the extraordinary vision, along the Mekong, of rifles
many stage sets. Spring Grove was a large 18th century philosopher George Gurdjieff, whose method, called stacked – green ribbons for the Communists, red
mansion that used to belong to the Pears – as in Pears The Work, trained people to develop their consciousness ribbons for the Royalists.”
soap – family. He was given a stable loft in which to in a way that combined belief systems from both East In the same way, Tilbrook’s studio, with his abstract
work. It was, he remembers, “the size of a bowling alley”, and West. Gurdjieff had died in 1949 but his acolytes paintings, has a wall of box files labelled Prisons,
the largest studio he would ever have in his long life. continued his mission. After four years, Tilbrook, who’d Trafficking, Women’s Issues. These are Moyreen’s
His father suggested he use some old London initially been enamoured with the Gurdjieff group, was papers from years of NGO work. “She’s the first to
Transport black roller blinds on which to paint on the cusp of disillusion. “They developed a music and accept she’s a piece of history now,” says her husband
a Venetian backdrop. These usually advertised movement side and as Moyreen will tell you, a worse later. “She’s the last of the old guard who contributed
destinations and services on the front of London’s buses dancer it would be hard to find.” so much.”
(when backlit on the opening night, it was apparent One day, in 1962, a British colonel who’d been based A few years ago, Tilbrook gave an interview to a
that Brian’s blinds still carried details about bus hire). in Kure rang to ask Tilbrook if he would teach art at the local archivist. “This Hong Kong Chinese woman said,
Nevertheless, access to that spacious stable loft, the Bourne School – officially the British Army Children’s ‘Would you say you benefited enormously because you
school’s encouragement and, most of all, witnessing School – in what was then called Malaya. He was told were an artist and a gweilo?’ And I said yes. She was
the early magic of his father’s creativity eventually to reply within 24 hours; within two, he’d said yes. He quite right. I know there are lots of Chinese artists. In
transported him to Ealing Art College. Several of his couldn’t have pinpointed Malaya on a map but he knew those days, if they wanted an exhibition they’d go off to
teenage paintings of scarred, post-war 1940s London it was closer to Japan. On the plane to Singapore, and Manila, it was cheaper.”
survive, including one of the ruins behind St Paul’s then the 27-hour train journey to Kuala Lumpur, was These days he hesitates, a little, about the Chinese
Cathedral. A previous work, called Kids’ Paradise, which a young woman who would be the school’s new history characters he likes to use in his work but which he
he still has on Lamma, shows a bomb site brick wall on teacher. This was Moyreen. can’t read. “I like the look of them, they’re pieces of
which children have chalked a cricket wicket. Viewing They were married at the end of their first year. At architecture to me.”
it now, the title and subject matter seem oddly prescient the end of their second, they moved back to Britain. After he left St George’s, in 1980, he was art director
because it was a cricket match, in the summer of 1953 “We’d never met each other’s parents,” Moyreen at South Island School for 15 years, then became a
while he was on National Service, that introduced him explains. After 10 months, they fled – her verb – English design consultant for the English Schools Foundation.
to a new world. A cricket ball broke his finger, which in a suburbia and, in 1965, came to Hong Kong. Brian took In that capacity, he once painted three murals.
Tilbrook painting, would be the circle of destiny. up a post in the art department at St George’s School, “One woman said, ‘I think your murals are
His comrades were sent to Catterick, in North which closed in 1996 and is not to be confused with delightful, Brian, but I must tell you that the symbol
Yorkshire, but Brian, having rested his finger, boarded King George V School. (“They’re merely a king – we for prosperity is upside down.’ And the lady next to her
the Empire Orwell to sail for Korea, where the war were a saint,” as he likes to say.) Moyreen taught history said, ‘Isn’t that brilliant? Not many people realise that
between North and South had reached the pause in for four years at St Paul’s in Causeway Bay until their you add prosperity by turning it upside down.’”
hostilities at which it remains. By chance, the troopship children – girl, boy, boy – arrived in quick succession. For some of this conversation, he’s sitting on his roof
ahead of his had become stuck on a sandbank and he under two of the roughly 70 flags he owns. He varies
was obliged to disembark in Japan. He marvels at the rom the moment he landed in Hong Kong, them about every six weeks. Flap, flap, flap insist a
randomness. “If it hadn’t been for that sandbank … Tilbrook became involved in theatre design (first Welsh dragon and a heraldic lion – “a favourite image
from there unfolded a fairy tale.” F production: Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Yeoman of for both England and China”, explains a note the
He was sent to Kure, a naval port about 20km from the Guard for the Hong Kong Singers) and sometimes, Tilbrooks have placed on the wall outside, like a stage
Hiroshima. It had been eight years since the atomic when he’s describing his past in Asia, that’s how you direction for passers-by on their walk up from the ferry.
bomb had almost obliterated the city. Early on, out for a view it, too – a vast stage set. The Tilbrooks went to And for some of this conversation, he’s sitting under
walk, he saw what he describes as “the perfect shadow Cambodia three times in the 1960s. “You see a temple a large aquamarine-and-orange 2011 painting of the
of a human being, engraved by atomisation” on to stone. being intruded on by these massive trees that have Chinese character for “happiness”. A faint outline not
(It’s now in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.) pushed over the side, an amazing thing to look at,” he of circles but curves is beginning to obscure it. “Already
Did he paint that scene? “No. I took photographs but I says. “A joy, a magic country.” creeping in are the first strands of the curtain coming
never painted anything in Japan except what I thought Moyreen is the factual ballast to his recollections, down,” he says quietly. “I think that’s the pessimistic
was beautiful, like the fishing boats and the old houses.” quietly interposing dates, anchoring the enchanted nature of me coming in … Happiness by its very nature
While he was there, he designed a cinema on the landscape in realpolitik. In 1974, they travelled with must be short-lived.”
base. That was a form of set design: “I had to give those the children in Laos during a three-month ceasefire. “It Sometimes luck depends on how you perceive an
young men a belief that they were back at home in the went to the heart,” says Tilbrook, hand over his own. “It event – a broken finger, a sandbank, a pandemic. “I feel
Odeon, not in Japan.” They named it The Tilbrook in his makes me feel different just to think about Laos, that if people are interested, they’ll see it when it is on,” he
honour. After he returned to England, Japan still filled beauty of the Chinese-red and gold in the temples in says of the exhibition. Because of Covid-19, he’s been
his head. He longed to get back. Luang Prabang. given double the gallery space he’d expected.
He went to Hornsey College of Art, then taught “We were aware of these big saloon cars, curtained That’s lucky, he says. It’s offered him more opportu-
in a grammar school. “Lovely people, lovely kids, as all the way round – the Russians,” says Moyreen. “And nity to not worry and just get on with The Work.

February 13, 2022 // Post Magazine 13