About the Artist

Andrew Orr

b. 1969 

Beginning his artistic endeavors at an early age, Andrew Orr received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music after which he began his studies in art with courses at the University of New Mexico, with New Mexico impressionist Carol McIlroy and Massachusetts artists David P. Curtis and Joseph McGurl.  Orr’s work has shown in many locations in the United States, has won awards with National juried exhibitions of the Oil Painters of America, the Salmagundi Club, the American Artist’s Professional League and the Guild of Boston Artists.  His work has been featured in several one-person exhibitions.

An elected member of the Guild of Boston Artists, Andrew Orr’s awards include Alden Bryan Prize awarded by the Guild and the Alden Bryan Medal through Bryan Memorial Gallery, Vermont.  Additional awards include the Barbara Carter Award for Excellence from the Oil Painters of America, he is three times the winner of the Arthur T Hill Award for a Landscape from the Salmagundi Club, the Claude Parsons Award for a Landscape and the Helen DeCozen Award for a floral, both from the American Artists Professional League.  He is the recipient of the Charles Movalli Medal for Excellence in Painting.  Orr received recognition with his work wining First Place Overall with Plein Air Magazine’s, Plein Air Salon monthly competition.  An award winner with regional Plein Air events, Andrew received Best in Show with Plein Air Vermont, 2012 awarded by M. Stephen Doherty, editor, Plein Air Magazine.   His work was selected as a finalist as part of Art Renewal Center’s International Salon and a feature story about his work appeared in the 2013 April-May Issue of Plein Air Magazine and in August, 2015, American Art Review.  In 2019 he was listed as An Artist to Watch by the publication, Vermont Art Guide.   

Orr makes his home on the northern border of Vermont surrounded by fields, forests which often make up the subjects of his paintings.  When he is not working in his studio, a converted horse barn, he is often found tending the vegetable garden enjoying all the elements a bucolic life in Vermont has to offer.

Artist's Statement

The act of painting is about expressing the joy and excitement I feel, through colors and brush strokes, after having come upon a scene that has sparked an internal, emotional response; an internal, declarative response of, “this could be a painting.”  

Once I have found a subject I will often make sketches in pencil, making notes about colors, atmosphere, light, anything really that will help me remember the experience while I was in the field.  This collection of information will aid me in what I want to convey about the subject as I am painting.  It is of vital importance to me to become as familiar with my subject as possible before heading back into the studio.  In addition to notes, I use a camera, taking many photos of a scene from different angles and viewpoints. Often,in the field, with paints in hand, I will begin color sketches, field studies or smaller paintings but I find I can concentrate much better in the studio setting.  These color sketches however, are potentially the most important element in the process of a larger, more complex work. 

Once in the studio, I will take from my reference materials those elements that I find important to the compositional whole, moving, adding or deleting items that will help to make what feels, to me, to be the best overall picture.  I often plan my color schemes in watercolor first referring to a color wheel continually throughout the painting process.  I begin loosely working the entire canvas building the layers of paint slowly.   The process moves in many directions, known and unknown.  Each painting is unique and each section, almost to the square inch, can sometimes require a different approach to create the whole and ultimately, hopefully,  the big look of nature on the canvas.  Although, I am primarily a studio painter I strive to create paintings that retain a sense of spontaneity and life often associated with outdoor painting.   

As I have painted since 1998, full-time, it is often hard to define what might be some of my artistic goals.  I feel fortunate to have been able to develop a career, over time, selling in galleries and teaching in many locations around the country.  I find that my goals as an artist would be above all, simply to paint better pictures.  I never want to be stuck in any one genre or compositional trap so I find that I am constantly challenging myself to design paintings that are a little more complicated or involved be it compositionally, a color sense, mood or conceptually.  I never want to stop growing.

I create art as part of my desire to help bring something of aesthetic beauty to the world.  My paintings are about joy; about expressing the excitement I feel when I see light falling on an autumnal tree or the beauty of a newly opened flower.  They are about my curiosity and intrigue with objects, old and new; they are about those things that inspire me, that give me a reason to get out each day to see what the world has in store.  It is my hope that the viewer of my work will be inspired by what they see, that through one of my paintings their day might be somehow lifted. In some small way, I hope the viewer will feel some of what I have felt when first viewing the subject, discovering of the gifts of nature.

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