About David Z Orban

David Z Orban is a New Jersey-based figurative painter and teacher. He works primarily in oils, and, for more than 35 years, has exhibited widely throughout the Northeast U.S. He is currently a member of the faculty at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ.

"My formal education and degrees are in painting (BA, MFA, Brooklyn). When I started college, I had originally set out to become a graphic designer, but got sucked-over to the fine arts side, starting out in printmaking, and ending up as a painter. I went on to study with Philip Pearlstein, and was a printmaking assistant to him, working on a huge etching/aquatint of a view from Irving Sandler's apartment in downtown NYC. I also studied with Mel Leipzig, Frank Rivera, Lois Dodd, Sam Gelber, Alan D'Arcangelo, and Al Terris."

Over the last 35 years, Orban has been in more than 150 group exhibitions at galleries and museums, and had 8 one-person shows, including three solo shows (1986, 1987, and 1988) at the Blue Mountain Gallery, which was then located on Wooster Street, in New York City's Soho area. His work is included in public and private collections, has won several awards, and has been published. His last one-person show was in 1991, at Rider University, after which he took an extended hiatus from painting. The catalogue for that show featured an interview with Orban, conducted by Rider's Harry Naar. That interview can be found here. The hiatus — lasting from 1992 until 2010 — meant that Orban created no artwork of any kind, until he was approached to participate in an invitational exhibition at the Blue Mountain Gallery, which was now located in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood. Orban took the invitation as an omen, and promptly commenced work on his first painting in 18 years! The resulting work was included in Blue Mountain's 30th Anniversary Exhibition, held in December, 2010. His most recent works return to themes that Orban had been exploring in the late 80s and early 90s, and signals his long-awaited return to painting.

On a humorous note, Orban is the only person to ever have a show at the Trenton City Museum closed-down due to, shall we say, the appropriateness of the material! Thanks to the efforts of several politically-connected area artists and art-lovers (including Mel Leipzig and Molly Merlino), the show was eventually reopened, but, needless to say, it caused quite a stir.

A technology marketing consultant by day, Orban works primarily with start-up and early-stage technology companies. He also fronts The Mojo Gypsies, a blues/old-school R&B quartet that he founded in 2001. They can frequently be seen playing a variety of venues in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York City. In addition, Orban has taught undergraduate-level classes for several years, at Mercer County Community College; the Princeton Art Association; Artworks; and currently, at Rider University, where he teaches courses in advanced multimedia techniques.