In discussing his process, Astoria-based visual artist Darren Orange says, “I use what is at my disposal and seek out new adaptations of materials to solve problems in which traditional materials cannot provide, like a child playing on the floor with all his toys together…
“As a landscape artist I am most directly inspired by the surroundings of where I have lived. The sublime landscapes, homesteads of Central Washington, fishing villages on the lower Columbia River, and the desert of the Southwest. These pastoral places have provided me with reference to understand the past, and to be aware of my own mark on the environment.”
Orange has a BFA from Western Washington University. Orange lives in Astoria, Oregon and has been an Astoria Visual Arts board member. He has shown extensively throughout the Northwest including three solo exhibits and one group show in 2012 and has had exhibits in New York, L.A., Santa Fe, and Atlanta.
Darren lives in Astoria, Oregon at the convergence of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. He has lived here since 2000. After meeting friends in art school, three set off to collectively move to the remote area of the Lower Columbia Region. Here they rented a school house and painted every day for a year, sharing ideas and inspiration from the area.
In 2004, Darren left the Pacific Northwest having grown up on the apple orchards of Yakima, Wash. for the sublime desert plains of the Southwest. In Santa Fe, New Mexico he found Shidoni, a bronze foundry of national fame. At Shidoni he worked as a gallery associate learning the business of art sales and New Mexican art history. In the hours after work he cast his own works.
He returned to Astoria in 2006 and continued to exhibit paintings with Shidoni until 2007.
Today, Orange’s work is in collections across the country, Canada, England, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates, and he has been included in national shows juried by curators from the Guggenheim, Portland Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, and the Microsoft Collection. His work has also been published in regional books and magazines.