SELECTED WORK
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James Orr
James was born in Glasgow and had an early career in the ‘Rag Trade’.
It was not until he was 40 that he enrolled as an evening student at the Glasgow School of Art, studying painting for the first season
under William Crosbie RSA and then for eight years studying life drawing under John Boyd RGI.
During this period his skills improved and he successfully joined the
RGI, where he exhibited for the next twenty-one years. James won the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons Award at the RGI in 1997 and a painting hung at the RSA was bought by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh for the Queen’s private apartments at Holyrood.
Spurred on by his early success, he has since exhibited in London,
Paris, Brussells, New York, Hong Kong and Dublin, as well as
numerous galleries throughout Scotland and the UK, where his work
is considered to be very Scottish in style and very saleable.
“I paint mostly in acrylics, which goes back to the time when I
was in business and could only paint at the weekends, as oil was
too slow a medium.
I try to keep everything as simple as possible, no additives like
retarder, and just clean water. I use a very limited palette, five
colours and white, which gives me a good range.
My work has been influenced by quite a few sources, including
The Scottish Colourists, Edward Seago, Ken Howard and by those
whom I consider should be the ‘New Glasgow Boys’: Goudie,
Donaldson, Cunningham, Boyd, Devlin, Kirkham and Forrest.
Wonderful draughtsmen all and strong painters to boot!”
James still attends a life drawing class to this day and also teaches
painting at various art clubs and societies. He has been a huge
influence on many artists, and now young artists are clearly receiving his message that the quality of the art, the ability to draw and the use of bright vivid colours is an art in itself. No amount of imagination or enthusiasm can take the place of years of dedicated practice.