Wendy Orville

Wendy Orville’s monotypes explore the beauty and emotional complexity of the Pacific Northwest landscape. Her spare monotypes internalize and recreate an experience of the landscape that captures a sense of space, movement and drama.

Before coming to the Northwest, Orville earned a BA in Fine Arts from Yale University and an MFA in Painting from American University. Leaving the East Coast for Taos, New Mexico, she discovered an openness of horizon and sky that has inspired her work ever since. In Taos, Orville was introduced to monotype and fell in love with the medium, experiencing a newfound freedom of expression and creative possibility.

In 1996, Orville moved from New Mexico to Seattle and was inspired by the lush, veiled atmosphere of the region. She began making tonal monotypes exploring the subtle and evocative light of the Northwest focusing primarily on trees, water and sky.

To build the multiple layers in her images, Orville builds her compositions through a combination of additive and subtractive printmaking processes. She often begins by rolling gradients of black and transparent etching ink onto a plexiglass plate, then lifting away forms with cloths and tools to suggest shifting clouds and atmosphere. After printing this initial layer, she constructs additional layers, building a more defined image by adding ink to the plate—shaping the landscape with rollers, brushes, cut up credit cards and improvised tools. When printed, these layers merge, creating a dialogue between precision and openness, form and atmosphere.

Orville’s monotypes have been exhibited widely including at the Tacoma Art Museum, Museum of Northwest Art, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Bellevue Arts Museum and Davidson Galleries in Seattle. Her prints are featured in the book SINGULAR AND SERIAL: Contemporary Monotype and Monoprint.

Watch Wendy Orville: Inside the Artist’s Studio.

Watch a short Instagram reel of her process.

Click here to read more about Orville’s printmaking process