ORLANDO SAVERINO-LOEB

My work has been a sequential progression of a search. A search that I set out upon part way through college, though that is not to say that I haven’t been on it before then. This search is for a visual primary source. It’s about where the work originates from as well. It began with blind contour drawings, drawings done by touch without the aid of eyes. This led to something new, something tangible that wasn’t just a highly edited experience. Those unseen feelings of surfaces translated into line were their own, were new, and held a certain life. I drew upon that, and put them together, copied them, and transferred that little bit of life into landscapes of objects never before seen.

For me making a painting is about the origins of the work, for they ride with us; therefore they transcend the past and future. They exist in the past as memories and histories and act as a directive for the future. The origin of an idea spurs a creative exploration. This leads to the creation of continuous prototypes and new works.

Perhaps all of these works may stand alone, though they all have a connection with that original idea or drawing. That is the in-escapable reality of origins. They are the lifeblood of our creative process whether we like it or not.

The inception of all my work carries through to the end so that if you look just right you might be able to see it.

Over time, I found a new infatuation with interacting with the viewer. I stopped talking about the paintings and listened, instead, to what people were saying about the work. People would change their interpretation of what they were seeing the more they looked at a piece. I began to believe that the painting itself was less important than what people saw. I began to think, “How can I make a painting that eliminates what I want to force on the viewer?” I wanted to give more power to the viewer, because I’ve always thought that the viewer is more important than the painter. Recently, I have decided to explore the compositional patterns that tend to develop within my works and in turn used this method to digest some of the current events that are rapidly unfolding.

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Orlando Saverino-Loeb is a Philadelphia born artist who works primarily in paint. His work is a constantly evolving process of exploration that spawned from the desire to find a visual primary source. This exploration led to working in blind contour to find marks that were un-edited by the eye. This in turn led to a focus on pareidolia, a sensation where the brain finds images in a pattern when they are not there.

His process is dependent on the speed and freedom involved in making the pieces. The colors and sense of light that he uses in the paintings are highly influenced by his extended stays throughout Italy. Using acrylic paint, an airbrush, and other mixed media he slowly builds out an environment that is bursting with textures and varied techniques to be explored for hours on end.

He has shown his work multiple times at the Infusion lounge in Philadelphia, along with select appearances with the Philadelphia Art Collective, the Stella Elkins Tyler Gallery, Vintage Wine Bar, the Inliquid Gallery, Fleisher Art Memorial and the Davinci Art Alliance. He is a resident artist at Hot-Bed Gallery in Philadelphia. He has also done murals around Temple University’s Campus and has recently returned from the BecomeBecome residency in Sardinia, Italy during which he presented in their first symposium talk at the Stazione Dell'Arte - Museo d'arte contemporanea in Ulassai.