About the artist: Peter Orr's story is a strange one. Raised in Queens, New York, he spent an unusual amount of time roaming the innards of the Statue of Liberty, his father having been the electrician who got the contract to maintain the lighting there. That might be the least strange thing about his childhood. Without getting too personal, let's just say murder and mayhem may or may not have been defining elements of his formative years. Young adulthood brought Orr's musical inclinations to bloom, and he became a staple of the NYC underground rock scene, bringing his talents to stages in legendary punk clubs such as CBGB in the 1980s. Around the same time, Orr's interest in the macabre mingled with his skill as a writer, producing that most peculiar of gigs, Managing Editor for Fangoria Magazine—a post which he held for several years. In 1993, having burnt out from the daily grind presented by the NYC publishing world, Orr decided the time was ripe to reinvent himself—and so he packed a knapsack, hopped a freight train, and made a run for New Orleans. Or he might have driven a car. But New Orleans was where he landed, and he has worked there ever since, primarily as a musician, but also as an author of “strange fiction.” Under the pen name of P. Curran, Orr has produced several novels and short story collections, including the cult classic, “Stay Out of New Orleans.” It wasn't till 2007 that he began to paint, evidently in response to an unprosecuted homicide within his immediate family. As a visual artist, his subject matter and technique vary widely. The Creepy Family Series (named by regulars at a coffee shop where these paintings have been regularly showcased) depicts what appear to be old photographs infused with an overpowering mood of grim loss. The source of this ominous quality remains as mysterious to Orr as to any viewer. His jar-lid portraits of authors and composers resulted from an insistence by someone close to Orr that he stop “painting that morbid stuff.” You may decide for yourself whether these portraits are morbid or not.