the art of ORR MARSHALL

the square series

The idea for the Square Series paintings came to me from color mixture tests painted in rows of small rectangles as in color samples 1–3, and from stripes painted as records of color mixtures being used in current work as in color stripes 4–6. It seemed an interesting challenge to try painting essentially curvilinear forms such as the human figure entirely with straight edges and square corners. Incidentally, the mixtures in color stripes 5 were used in the painting Studio Portrait; and chance juxtapositions of colors in stripes and rectangles such as these have provided starting points for new paintings, for example The Chocolate Chip Cookie.
⇖ Bluestocking with Sudden Breeze ⇖ Rozodalisk
⇖ A Day in the Country ⇖ Fuji with Venusbirth

dream symbol myth

⇖ Ecstatic Emissions…
⇖ Sekhmet Study 2, a fragment of a textile pattern, when glanced from a distance, seemed to correspond exactly to study 1, an image (originally seen in a dream) of a woman’s profile within the outline of a leonine head. And so these colors were the starting point for the painting — Sekhmet being the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess represented with a human body and the head of a lioness. ⇖ Aurora Leonina ⇖ Garden Party with Guest

⇖ The Chocolate Chip Cookie The colors for this painting were suggested by the four stripes at upper right of the sheet of color mixtures in reference 1. ⇖ Ancient Flight Paths The painting arose from these color patterns, first made as tests for the sculpture Ushabty of Menmet. ⇖ Romania, December 1989 ⇖ Te Poe (The Pearl) This color pattern, which was originally meant for the painting Garden Party with Guest but not used there, became the starting point for Te Poe. ⇖ Hyppolyta ⇖ Nanette of the North Reference 1 is a close-up photo of an old linoleum floor where random splotches suggested a face, below which appeared the vague shape of a fur-coated figure. These forms were traced (reference 2) as the starting point for Nanette of the North, however changing the head to a half-tone dot image, greatly enlarged (head study 3). Other tracings from the floor served as parts of later paintings such as Cupcakes and Manga Fan. ⇖ Cupcakes Head sketch 1 is another tracing from the linoleum floor, as described earlier in Nanette of the North reference 1. This head was the kernel that grew into the painting Cupcakes.
⇖ Fair Exchange