When he was growing up in Port Washington on the north shore of Long Island, New York, on the edge of the woods, Roy Nydorf was fascinated with nature and like many children “collected rocks, birds nests, and moths and butterflies.” Nydorf’s large pastels on paper of butterflies and moths are some of the artist’s most collected works.
From his studio in Oak Ridge he recalls: “I loved the colors and amazing patterns of the moths and butterflies, but after collecting and mounting them for a while, I had a dream/nightmare about giant larvae attacking me, in revenge for killing the flying insects. At that point I no longer collected living specimens, only ones I found deceased on the roadside.”
Pastels, Nydorf states, are the perfect medium for drawing donatans and lepidopterans (dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, caterpillars and moths) “because of the delicate, powdery and vivid surface of the actual butterflies.”
Roy Nydorf’s sculptures and paintings were recently exhibited at Gallery 1250 at Revolution Mills alongside Jan Lukens and Michael Northuis and will be on view at GreenHill in PRESENCE: A Figurative Art Survey.