Art has flowed from Darrell Orwig ever since he came to Hawaii from Chico State College in the 70s. With a mischievous twinkle in his eye, he worked through his mysterious Kaena Point Series to major corporate commissions and on to war paintings. In 1991, then-LTJG Orwig, USCGR documented the Persian Gulf War via 16 paintings that are now part of the Coast Guard art collection. Each step of the way Orwig discovers and shares his enthusiasm for life in the mysterious present.

With his paintings Orwig focuses on the miracle of what is right before our eyes. He relishes the excitement of qualities observed in our everyday environment that we may either dismiss or overlook and he shares his eye-opening experiences. His paintings are the answer to the questions: "What does the painter see? What does he get excited about, seek to capture, interpret, recreate, and share?" His images are paths for empathy, seeing, and feeling with the artist what he perceives.

We often see only what we expect to see. After seeing travel advertisements, our expectations and experiences upon arrival at the actual place are framed and colored by those already-seen cliché images held in our memory. Orwig's paintings snap viewers out of such limited prejudgments. He challenges our assumptions regarding what is worth paying attention to and what is not. He teases us by first letting us think that what we are seeing is mundane.

Part of what these pictures are about is photography's impact. Orwig is dealing with the nature of photography and its pervasive, immediate and accessible role in our lives. The world is inundated with photo imagery and after awhile we fail to notice how it can either limit or expand awareness.

Darrell Orwig makes ongoing use of the camera as an exploratory tool, a sketching device. 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. The rounded corners on his images recall the past's ubiquitous Kodachrome slides of family travel. In Orwig's eyes and hands the snapshot totally breaks the lookout-spot, take-your-picture-here mold. For Orwig, it's 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.

Many voices are orchestrated here within the voice of the artist. They include the voices of brush, paint, color, and composition. The brushed-in paint colors dance in interacting waves of dynamic balance. With these means, Orwig represents those perceptions that awaken a special awareness of time, light, and space. For such perceptions to occur, specific subjects are either irrelevant or only part of the story. What is required is a shift in awareness, a shift in thinking about what is important. It is this kind of shift that is the ground for art. This is what makes it possible for adults to renew the sense of wonder, to see something as if for the first time.

Darrell Orwig has long been interested in the relationships among man-made artifacts and natural places. Such art is not commodity, not mere image recognition. The ultimate value to the artist and to the viewer is what one does with it, what meaning and /or quality of experience one gains from it. It's the handprint on the cave wall, the symbol of insights. It is always possible that viewers won't see it.

How to conjure a unique one-of-a-kind experience? Representational art is only a starting point for Orwig. It's a starting point for his stories. He feels like a kid dying to tell his parents what happened in school. The more he builds in the intensity and excitement of his original vision, the more nuanced his surfaces become, the greater the chance of revelation.

The way such art sparks new levels of awareness is one of life's lasting pleasures.

There's nothing like renewed awareness, the experience of waking up to beauty and mystery right in front of you moment-to-moment, to seeing anew.