Anduin Vaid the Artist
Anduin Vaid is a professional illustrator and painter located in Virginia. He has been creating artwork, in one form or another, for over sixteen years, and his professional illustration and painting career has spanned more than a decade. His works have been distributed and shown around the country, and within five years he will begin to work from a studio built to his custom specifications in a place as-yet undecided.
He has, and always will, consider his artwork one of his greatest passions for life.
A visionary artist spanning multiple genres, Anduin came to reside in the mountains of Roanoke, Virginia through a life of travel and change. Born in Milan, Italy, in 1984 to parents unknown, he began his existence as an orphan. For the earliest part of his life, he stayed at an orphanage, and thanks to the conditions there, he was very sickly and never adopted. One day when he was approximately four or five years old, he and an older friend of his left the orphanage and stowed away aboard a freightliner after spending the day at a port. Unbeknownst to them, the ship sailed slowly but surely across the Atlantic, and came to dock in New York City. At the age of eight, Anduin found himself on the streets of New York City as yet another unwanted foster care child who had fled the confines of a home that was more unforgiving than the orphanage in Italy. Through it all, the colors, the textures, and the sounds of the city fascinated him. He began to express himself visually more and more often, by drawing or painting, as well as writing stories. At the age of twelve he made his first artistic exhibition, which he held street side on 5th avenue by himself amidst the New York pedestrian traffic.
His earliest works were based in the world of comics–the bright vivid colors and the larger-than-life people and places fascinated him. It was in this way he began to make his own worlds. Shortly after his first crude exhibition, a young Professor in the inner city of Manhattan discovered him, alone and malnourished. Eventually, through trust earned, she welcomed Anduin into her home and introduced him to various painting and visual arts masters, classical music, and the soul stirring influences of Blues and Jazz.
Anduin drenched himself with the knowledge offered to him. His earlier works were emotionally invocative of the anger, angst, and longing of his childhood. They illustrated a feeling and a moment that echoed certain parts of his past would always be lost, and the making of his present was all that mattered.
Many years past and Anduin found a family that adopted him and gave him a home and the freedom to fully explore his gifts.
Anduin now resides in Fincastle, Virginia. He now has over ten years experience in the traditional arts, including forays into painting, graphic novels, and conceptual design (automobiles, website graphics, and architectural layouts). His work has been featured across America in gallery and home alike.
He has and always will consider his artwork to be one of his greatest passions, and the expression of that passion, for life.