SUSTAINING A SENSE OF WONDER
The Paintings of Darrell Orwig
Duane Preble, 
Professor Emeritus of Art, University of Hawaii
Darrell Orwig delights in the ways art reveals life. Soon after arriving in Hawaii in the 1970s he produced meticulous, sometimes surreal drawings and photo-realist paintings in his Kaena Point Series. He carried some of that style into corporate commissions and paintings on the subject of war. In 1991, as Lt.JG Orwig in the U.S. Coast Guard, he documented the Persian Gulf War with 16 paintings, now part of the Guard’s historic art collection.
With each chapter of his work Orwig presents what he sees in places, people, and events. He takes a romantic view of nature, making landscapes into leading characters. Momentary light and color is inspiration for many of his paintings. His preference is not just for raw nature, but also for sometimes-surprising juxtapositions of nature-made and human-made forms. Such art is not mere representation; it is a kind of photo-realism with a twist. There is often something mysterious and tweaky in Orwig’s art.
His paintings snap viewers from perceptual slumber by challenging assumptions regarding what is worth paying attention to and what is not. With impish insight and humor, he teases viewers by first letting us think what we are seeing is mundane. 


Orwig presents his perceptions of time and space, light and color at a particular moment and place made notable by his sense of meaning. For such perceptions to occur, specific nameable subjects are only part of what he sees. A shift in the viewer's awareness is needed regarding what is worth noticing. This shift is the source for much of Orwig’s art. Seeing through his eyes renews our sense of wonder. 
The ultimate value to the artist and the viewer is the lasting quality of such encounters.
How to conjure a one-of-a-kind experience? Representational art is only a beginning for Orwig. His art reminds us of a kid excitedly telling his friends what he just noticed. The more he builds in the intensity and excitement of his original awareness, the more nuanced his surfaces become, the greater the chance of revelation. To paraphrase Cezanne: Without sustained excitement throughout the process there is no art.
Part of what Orwig's paintings are about is photography’s impact on our lives. He is dealing with the nature of photography and its pervasive, immediate and accessible role in contemporary life. Our world is so saturated with photographic imagery that we often fail to consider how photos can either diminish or expand awareness.
Orwig makes ongoing use of the camera as a sketching device and exploratory tool. His method for uncovering a deeper reality is influenced by his many years living in and seeing travel shots being generated by the millions in tourist-Mecca Hawaii. His slide-proportioned images with rounded corners recall the past’s ubiquitous travel slides. For Orwig, the image is not the designated lookout point or the exotic destination of postcard fame; it’s the wonder of what we may have missed along the way.
Ultimately Darrell Orwig’s drawings and paintings are sensuously surfaced objects in which color is often the point. Illusionary references to reality are only part of his local soul food.
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