the art of ORR MARSHALL

Ema Gyaru: The Japanese title of the painting in 3D block characters differs in meaning from the English title.
Ema, written with two kanji* in the upper row, means literally “Picture Horse.” The old custom of donating a horse to a temple devolved into donating a painting of a horse (ema) on a wooden plank, and finally into the small votive plaques seen in this painting. A visitor purchases a small ema at a temple or shrine, writes a wish on the blank side and hangs it on a rack there (never around her neck or on a city street; that is artist’s license), hoping the wish will be granted. Gyaru, written in katakana* in the lower row, comes from the English word “gal.” But in Japan it has the special meaning of girls who wear extreme fashions and bizarre makeup. Gyaru have their own argot, some of which is used as graffiti here.
*(Japanese is written with a combination of kanji and kana. Kanji are Chinese characters written singly or in groups, representing an entire word or phrase. Kana are two sets of Japanese phonetic characters representing the same 46 sounds: hiragana, the rounded cursive form, used to write word endings and simple parts of speech; and katakana, the square block-like form, used mainly to write foreign words and scientific terms.) Nō puro, bēbī: Short for “No problem, baby!” Inscribed in ancient seal style on the handbag clasp is a Chinese version of the artist’s name, Ma Hsia, after two Sung Dynasty painters, Ma Yüan and Hsia Kuei (1190–1225). Many ema (see this note) are shown hanging on racks here as they would be at a temple (although never on a city street), signed with a mixture of invented and actual names. Some are character names from the artist’s favorite manga series, Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku by Hamaoka Kenji, about a group of outrageous little schoolkids. Some of the wishes written on ema are: “I want to be happy”; “I wish my head would get smart”; “I’ll pass the exam for sure”; “I hope I can get a job at Louis Vuitton”; “I want to become more and more gyaru-ish.”