Art in the Vicinity
DENIS ORLOFF
Taking You to Places in the Heart Story and portrait by Dan Epstein
W
e all have places in which we are happy, content, and at peace with the world. The meticulously crafted watercolors of area resident Denis Orloff take us to his, and in that journey, it’s as if we can’t help finding our way to ours as well. As an illustration major at New York’s prestigious Parsons School of Design, he learned the ins and outs of creating images that in his very busy early career, would illustrate magazines, books, posters, and advertising. Yet it was after the birth of his first child that he put aside his brushes, and began to develop real estate. Essex County is dotted with the homes his firm renovated, or built from scratch, all of which beautifully harken to a grand time in American architecture. It was in 2006, when he found inspiration learning about the grandfather he’d never met, legendary painter Gregory Orloff. He took this inspiration to the Catskill farm his family owns and put it to work. “I have always been drawn to the light”, he says. “Light is everything. Sunrises and sunsets, the early morning light and the fading light of twilight; I believe that the depiction of light is one of the hardest and most gratifying things I can do in a painting.” Orloff believes that this special light brings up feelings of nostalgia and other deep emotions. And that it does when depicted by him in his remarkable watercolor paintings.
Denis Orloff 28
Vicinity Magazine
Summer 2022
