Eric Orr (1939–1998) was a sculptor and installation artist. He lived and worked in Venice, California from 1965–1998, and is a key figure of the Light and Space movement. Before moving to Los Angeles in 1965, Orr was a civil rights worker in Mississippi. His artworks are found in the collections of many major cultural institutions, and his work is installed in public and private spaces internationally.
In both his installations, sculpture and paintings, Eric Orr worked with elemental qualities of natural materials; stone, metal, water, and fire, gold leaf, lead, blood, human skull, and AM/FM radio parts. Orr worked with the phenomenological exploration of perception. His body of work also includes monochromatic paintings, and large-scale fountains (with water & fire). His work was influenced by a religio-philosophical conceptualization of space icons found in ancient religions and cultures, such as Egyptian symbolism and Buddhist Spiritualism. Orr is associated with Light and Space, a group of mostly West Coast artists whose work is primarily concerned with perceptual experience stemming from the viewer's interaction with their work. "The space itself changes you, instead of an object."
