This innovator produces remarkably emotive paintings that are a contrast with the monotony of the motorway
A long motorway drive can be a hellish experience, particularly with heavy traffic or a breakdown, but when the route is clear they can be dream expressways. Since the M1 opened in 1959, motorways have inspired musicians and film-makers, but rarely artists. Now, Manchester-based Jen Orpin has bucked that trend with her atmospheric studies of motorway bridges, which, after the first was displayed in 2018, now number more than 600. Last year, two bridge pieces were accepted for the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, and Jen has her first international show in May, at the Art Busan in Seoul, South Korea.
The dramatic series of works was inspired by a regular road trip over three months in 2015 to visit her father in hospital following his stroke. “Every Monday I’d head down from Manchester to Surrey via the M56, M6, M42, M40 and M25, then return on Friday,” she recalls. “It was a solo drive spent trying to process all my emotions and memories, but the bridges became markers for distance, and friendly faces,” says Jen. “My first road trips were in the back of Dad’s Ford Cortina in the 1980s to visit our family in Sunderland. With my twin sister and brother, we were bundled into the back – early in the morning so Dad could beat the traffic. There were no seatbelts and we were always sliding around on the vinyl upholstery.”
All those experiences became the focus of her bridge paintings. The reaction to the compositions has been remarkable, capped by the Manchester Art Gallery acquiring a painting of the Denton M60 bridge entitled No War But Class War for its collection.
Jen’s paintings uncorked an emotive response, starting with an early inclusion in the prestigious Westmorland Landscape Prize exhibition. “When one lady saw my M6 painting she was moved to tears,” says Jen. “Her father had been involved in the construction of the bridge featured in the piece, and it stopped her in her tracks. She just had to buy it. To deliver the painting we met at the services on the M1 and spent an emotional hour chatting.” Interest rapidly grew after The Observer featured Jen’s work: “I was inundated with emails from readers relating stories of
