Johnny Romeo
NEW CLEAR DAYS
New Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo makes his thrilling return to Linton & Kay Gallery in Perth with his latest series, NEW CLEAR DAYS. Australia’s King of Pop has crafted some of his most philosophical and audaciously Pop works to date as he explores a world caught between the isolation of Covid regulations and lockdowns, and the cautious promise of society re-opening as vaccines are rolled out. Bursting with life-affirming colour explosions, dark Absurdist humour and bombastic visual mashups that jam everything from hip hop and punk rock to Star Wars, the series holds up a neon-drenched mirror to our current collective experience, as reflected through Romeo’s inimitable Kitsch Pop style. NEW CLEAR DAYS is a vivacious and thought-provoking body of work that reflects on the tension between hope and hopelessness, and celebrates the powers of resilience and optimism to help us survive the global pandemic.
NEW CLEAR DAYS takes its name from the British New Wave band The Vapors’ 1980 album of the same name. Rife with clever wordplay, ‘New Clear Days’ is a cheeky pun on the phrase ‘Nuclear Days’, conjuring up contradictory images of sun-kissed celebrations alongside the latent threat of nuclear war. The title’s humorous but unsettling balance between cheeriness and existential angst perfectly captures our shared anxiety of living in a world amidst the Covid 19 pandemic. On the one hand, the rollout of vaccines has given us hope that we can soon push beyond the Covid bubble. However, the emergence of newer, more virulent strains has also left us with the fear that Corona, and the isolating lock downs that come with it, are here to stay for a while yet. Throughout the series, Johnny Romeo grapples with a key philosophical question: ‘what does it take to live in a world filled with so much uncertainty, under the shadow of something that affects our very existence?’
For Romeo, the answer lies in resilience and re-invention. From self-made Tiger Kings to pilot felines unafraid of flying headfirst into the unknown, NEW CLEAR DAYS is populated with uncompromising figures all determined to survive in a world turned upside down. The series drips with an irrepressible punk rock attitude and rock’n’roll swagger that speaks to the indomitable spirit of people who persevere and forge their own paths despite the challenges of the world around them. Rife with references to punk legends, iconic daredevils and gangster gals, the paintings are a celebration of overcoming adversity, of taking life by the horns and becoming the master of your own destiny. In many ways, NEW CLEAR DAYS is a tribute to the everyday heroes of the Corona pandemic, who have braved the frontlines or juggled the demands of homeschooling and working from home, adapting their lives in ways both banal and extraordinary in pursuit of a new dawn.
Central to resilience is the power of positivity, and the ability to keep our spirits up even when the world is a terrifying and uncertain place under the grips of a pandemic. Romeo injects a healthy dose of Poptimism into his latest body of work as he pushes his exuberant colour arrangements and knack for bright, eye-catching Pop imagery to electrifying new heights. Vibrant bursts of sugary, Technicolour hues lend the paintings an invigorating liveliness that energizes the audience to embrace life and always look on the bright side, especially during life’s darkest moments. In the neon-drenched environs of Romeo’s NEW CLEAR DAYS, optimism gives us the confidence to overcome trauma and reinvent, to find home when we are lost, and most impressively, to love with the unconditional Southern candor of Dolly Parton.
With NEW CLEAR DAYS, Australia’s leading culture jammer has delivered an empowering statement on the importance of self-belief and reinventing yourself to adapt to life’s challenges. Brimming with exhilarating imagery and intense colour arrangements, Johnny Romeo’s latest series is a clarion call for resilience and positivity as we overcome the existential dread of nuclear days in pursuit of the brightness of New Clear Days.
Opening reception: Thursday 19th August 2021 | 6-8pm @ Linton & Kay Galleries, Subiaco Gallery / 299 Railway Road (Corner Nicholson Rd) Subiaco WA | +61 8 9388 3300
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s NEW CLEAR DAYS can be made directly through Linton & Kay Galleries (subiaco@lintonandkay.com.au) or by calling the gallery on +61 8 9388 3300 (Subiaco) / +61 8 6465 4314 (West Perth)
lintonandkay.com.au
RSVP for Opening Night is essential.
RSVP to: subiaco@lintonandkay.com.au
Email for a catalogue to: subiaco@lintonandkay.com.au
Exhibition Dates: 14th August – 5th September 2021.
Johnny Romeo
KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER
New Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo makes his thunderous debut in New Orleans with his latest series KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER. Romeo’s new collection of original works sees the world-leading Kitsch Pop provocateur at his most bombastic and brazen, fusing together the irresistible pop hooks of the New Romantic movement with the majestic regalia of traditional royal portraits and the invigorating bullishness of Cubist masters Pablo Picasso and George Condo. Exhibiting at Graphite Gallery on Royal Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter, Romeo evokes the area’s regal and romantic connections to Paris while paying homage to the restless punk energy that burns at the heart of New Orleans and continues to make it a centre of boundary pushing creativity. With KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER, Australia’s leading Pop artist has delivered his most breathtaking distillation of Kitsch Pop slickness and Cubist expressiveness to date, envisioning a rich, neon-drenched world where beasts run the show and punks are the new royals.
Taking its title from Adam and the Ants 1980 anthem of the same name, KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER is a gloriously Technicolour foray into the realm of royalty that explores what it means to be a ‘new royal’ in a world that has largely done away with traditional notions of nobility. The series brims with bright, bubble-gum colours, delightfully chic rulers and a vibrant flair for theatricality that evokes the spirit of the New Romantics movement of the early 1980s. Characterised by their love of regal costumes, larger-than-life personalities and slick Pop melodies, the New Romantics took the energy of punk and fused it with the futuristic synthesisers of New Wave and the fabulous schlock of glam rock to create a potent youth movement that revolutionised Pop culture and turned traditional notions of masculinity and gender on their head.
Romeo gleefully re-appropriates the traditional austerity of royal portraiture to create rogue rulers, dandyish dukes and elegant earls that embody the gender-bending stylishness of the New Romantics. The paintings powerfully envision a new wild frontier of self-made punk nobles who have ascended to power not through royal blood but by tearing up the rulebook and fighting their way to the top. Striking a brilliant balance between the sophisti-pop of Roxy Music and the propulsive, tribal rhythms of Adam and the Ants, the series is an unapologetically brash celebration of the fearless vision of the New Romantics and the self-made new royals who channel their energy today. In KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER, Adam and the Ant’s triumphant declaration ‘of a new Royal family/ A wild nobility/ We are the family’ becomes a statement of intent where the elitism and oppression of old royalty gives way to a world where anyone can take a shot at the throne.
The theme of breaking with tradition and seeing the world from new, exciting perspectives is further explored through Johnny Romeo’s dazzling fusion of portraiture and Cubism. KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER, the artist brings the influence of Cubist master Pablo Picasso and the frenetic expressiveness of neo-Cubist provocateur George Condo to the forefront of his practice, and in doing so has crafting some of his most bold and bombastic works. Jagged, geometric fragments powerfully disrupt the sleek sheen of Romeo’s Pop royal portraits, lending the works a palpable physicality that evokes the signature garish make-up of New Romantics and Cubism’s radical approach to re-envisioning perceived realities. Long inspired by the works of Picasso, the artist has skilfully appropriated shapes and figures from his own past works into his latest paintings, twisting and angling them into spirited configurations that breathe new life into his depictions of commanders and rulers. On a more emotional level, Romeo’s frenzied and distorted portraits interrogate the complex states of mind experienced by royals who have clawed their way to the top, recalling the psychologically fraught imagery and raw irreverence of George Condo.
Showcasing his mastery of mashups, Johnny Romeo ruptures the muscular, angular heft of his New Royals with a healthy injection of Kitsch in the form of cute animals. In the paintings, Romeo’s kings of the wild frontier are depicted clutching a wide range of creatures, ranging from piglets and lambs, to fuzzy felines and koalas. The clumsy awkwardness of their poses imbues them with a relatable sense of humanity, calling to mind the classical portraits of nobility as filtered through the hilariously awkward shots of royal visits gone wrong taken for tabloid magazines. Echoing David Bowie’s New Romantic-inspired anthem ‘Teenage Wildlife’ (1980), the cute creatures offer a disarming sense of tenderness to the works while also tapping into our more primal and animalistic instincts as we venture into the wilderness of the new frontier.
A glorious cocktail of vibrant colour explosions, slick graphic imagery and Cubist bullishness, KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER is an electrifying homage to the daring spirit and fierce flamboyance of the New Romantics movement from one of the world’s leading voices in Kitsch Pop. In Romeo’s new wild frontier, royalty is not something you’re born into, but a state of mind that calls us to embrace our inner wild child and become the rulers of our own reality.
Opening 4th of July Weekend.
Preview: Friday 2nd July – 12-6pm | Opening Night: Saturday 3rd July – 6-9pm
Graphite Gallery | 936 Royal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70116, United States of America.
Any enquiries regarding Johnny Romeo’s KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER can be made directly through Graphite Gallery (info@graphitenola.com) or by calling the gallery on +1 (505) 577-7873.
Exhibition Dates: 3rd July – 2nd August 2021.
Johnny Romeo
THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE MOON
New Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo makes his highly anticipated hometown return to Sydney with his exhilarating new series, THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE MOON. Amidst the darkness and collective anxiety that has come to characterize pandemic life in 2020, Romeo’s latest series is an invigorating shot of Technicolour Poptimism that urges us to reclaim the good times, overcome adversity and embrace life to the fullest. Vibrant bursts of colour, slick tongue-in-cheek imagery and witty wordplay all collide into a thrilling collection of paintings that confronts our mortality head on with life-affirming zeal, Pop irreverence and an indomitable sense of hope.
Renowned for his bold graphic style, Romeo’s latest works burst from the canvass with an electrifying energy that embraces the visceral thrill and vibrance of life. The artist’s penchant for fusing eclectic imagery, ranging from high fashion to rock’n’roll iconography and animal symbolism, masterfully captures the larger-than-life vivacity of Pop culture and its ability to collectively transport us to places beyond the banality and adversity of our quarantined existence. Romeo’s use of colour further expresses this point, as he injects his paintings with a captivating Technicolour exuberance that perfectly distills life in all its excitement and grandeur. Swells of punchy, candy-coloured hues explode across each canvass with intoxicating force, drawing the audience into Romeo’s neon-drenched Poptimist visions.
A cheeky play on Pink Floyd’s 1973 space-rock opus ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, the title of Romeo’s latest series is a rambunctious yet impassioned call for hope and positivity in dark and uncertain times. In the age of Corona, Pop culture and art are not just trivial commodities for our consumption and enjoyment, but vital lifelines through which we can tackle the challenges of our everyday reality while dreaming of a better tomorrow.
For Romeo, the promise of escapism and ‘dreaming big’ inherent in Pop culture is a powerful tool for coping and finding meaning in a world turned upside down by the Corona crisis. There is a palpable sense of Poptimism and hopefulness that radiates throughout THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE MOON, whether it be through a depiction of Dorothy and Toto from the Wizard of Oz decked out in space-age helmets finding happiness during a pandemic, or a tiger learning to ride the wave uncertainty and becoming the master of its own destiny. Even when Romeo flirts with the macabre, such as his portrayal of skulls or his allusion to Johnny Cash’s funereal ‘man in black’, there is a triumphant feeling of resilience and a steadfast belief that we can overcome and live life to the fullest.
Humour has long played a vital role in Johnny Romeo’s warped visions of contemporary life and Pop culture. In his latest series, however, humour is more than just a vehicle to skewer and satirise our media-obsessed culture, but an important mechanism through which we can laugh, feel, and make sense of a quarantined world where the Absurd has become the norm. Using his signature mastery of wordplay and knack for pithy cultural commentary, Romeo weaves together gleefully surreal paintings that mash together everything from iconic skateboard brands to intergalactic heroes filtered through the slick tracksuits of vintage New York hip hop. In doing so, the artist’s paintings act as potent reminders to have fun and find a reason to smile even when the world seems to be teetering on the brink of madness.
THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE MOON sees Johnny Romeo push his inimitable Kitsch Pop style to thrilling new heights as he crafts his most slickly bombastic, unapologetically Pop works to date. In a year plagued with fear and uncertainty, Australia’s King of Pop delivers a powerful call to action to never give up on our dreams and our pursuit of the sunny side of the moon, no matter the odds.
Please join us for the Facebook Live Opening: 6:30pm Friday 4th December – https://www.facebook.com/harveygalleriesmosman/live/
Artist Floor Talk: Saturday 5th December – 1-3pm
Harvey Galleries / Mosman 842 Military Road, Mosman 2088 NSW Australia.
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE MOON can be made directly through Harvey Galleries (service@harveygalleries.com.au) or by calling the gallery on +61 2 9907 0595
Exhibition Dates: 4th December – 15th December 2020.
Johnny Romeo
THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
Recent Paintings
Picture this: David Bowie, Bruce Lee, Frida Kahlo and a gathering of Pop culture’s most famous figures all sitting at the table for dinner. In his delectable new series, The Beautiful People, internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo makes his electrifying debut in Sweden with a dinner guest-list for the ages. Renowned for his explosive fusion of colourful Pop slickness, punk rock grit, razor sharp wit and ingenious culture jamming, Romeo is the leading force in Australian Pop art and has dazzled audiences the world over with his highly distinctive Kitsch Pop style. In his latest collection of small scale original paintings, the artist brings together a veritable who’s who of Pop culture icons, ranging from rebellious heartthrobs and silver screen starlets to cosmic glam rockers and kung fu masters, and invites them to dinner. The Beautiful People is a vibrant, playful and unashamedly Pop showcase that gives Swedish audiences their first tasty glimpse into the mind of Australia’s King of Pop.
Emerging on to the Australian art scene in 2007, Johnny Romeo has become a force to be reckoned with in the international art world, turning heads across the globe with his delightfully offbeat visions of Pop culture. The artist’s frenetic and neon-drenched approach to Pop Art cleverly culture jams instantly recognisable figures from the Pop culture canon and re-configures them in refreshingly original ways that rupture our sense of nostalgia and familiarity, and speak to our contemporary Pop experience. Bursting with sleek graphic gusto, invigorating explosions of candy-coated hues and witty wordplay, Romeo’s impressive body of work pushes contemporary Pop Art into deliciously bold new directions.
The Beautiful People perfectly distils Johnny Romeo’s inimitable Kitsch Pop style into a visual Technicolour feast for the senses. Born out of the boredom and isolation brought upon by being in lock-down during the Covid 19 crisis, the series yearns for connection by exploring a thought-provoking premise: who would you invite, dead or alive, to your dream dinner party? In Romeo’s fantasy feast, eccentric Surrealist visionaries such as Salvador Dali rub shoulders with Afro-futurist funksters like Prince and Pop Art’s very own mastermind, Andy Warhol. Slick, graphic line work, confectionary sweet hues and razor sharp word assemblages all come together to create a body of work that oozes attitude and captures the glitz and glamour of Pop culture’s most revered celebrities and icons. While working with smaller scale paintings, the portraits featured pack as much punch as Romeo’s larger works, with each painting cheekily acting as both a guest and a tantalising bite-sized course at Johnny Romeo’s Postmodern banquet.
There is an air of the sacred to The Beautiful People that reflects modern society’s fascination with deifying celebrities, transforming them into gods and modern day saints. Romeo sharply makes this point through his carefully curated dinner guest-list, which comprises solely of tragic artists and dead celebrities. Painted with the reverential zeal of a seasoned Pop culture aficionado, Romeo’s small-scale portraits amusingly take on the feel of sacred icons drawn from Orthodox Christian hagiography as filtered through Romeo’s zesty Technicolour Pop lens.
An avid Pop culture connoisseur, Johnny Romeo draws inspiration from a truly eclectic spectrum of music, ranging from the skittering beats of jazz, to the hard-hitting rhymes of hip hop and the glorious scuzz of punk. The Beautiful People takes its title from shock rocker Marilyn Manson’s 1996 anthem of the same name. Much like the malevolent infectiousness of Manson’s song, Johnny Romeo’s paintings are an incendiary blend of rock’n’roll nihilism and Pop music’s sugary immediacy that offer warped, Technicolour visions of the Pop culture reality we are immersed in on a daily basis. The title is a statement of intent that celebrates the perpetual allure of Pop culture’s ‘Beautiful People’, while lamenting these same icons as tragic figures gone too quickly before their time. Shades of the 90s alternative underground also appear in the series through the influence of Riot Grrrl band L7, whose addictively aggressive grunge hit ‘Shitlist’ acted as a creative springboard for the audacious tone and concept of Romeo’s Kitsch Pop dinner party.
The Beautiful People is a bombastic celebration of the larger-than-life celebrities and creative visionaries that make Pop culture such a fascinating aspect of our everyday life. Like a seasoned chef masterfully curating their signature menu, Australia’s leading Pop artist delivers a vivacious visual banquet full of colour and humour that gives Swedish audiences a delectable first taste of Johnny Romeo’s signature Kitsch Pop style.
Opening Reception: Due to the current situation with COVID-19 we will host two exhibition openings to avoid crowds, Friday 28th August (18.00-20.00) and Saturday 29th August (12.00-16.00).
Lohme Art Gallery
Erik Dahlbergsgatan 24B,
211 48 Malmö, Sweden
Ph: +46 (0) 760 83 74 87
Any enquiries regarding Johnny Romeo’s THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE can be made directly through Lohme Art Gallery (info@lohmeartgallery.com) or by calling the gallery on +46 (0) 760 83 74 87
Exhibition Dates: August 28th – 17th October, 2020.
Johnny Romeo
BURN DOWN THE DISCO
New Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo storms into 2020 with his incendiary new series BURN DOWN THE DISCO. Romeo’s latest exhibition is an electrifying romp through the lawless wastelands of Pop culture and marks the artist’s triumphant return to Perth since his widely celebrated show Rock Is Dead in 2018. A revolutionary call to arms amidst the chaos of contemporary life, the series showcases Australia’s King of Pop at his most provocative and confrontational, as he injects a healthy dose of venom into his inimitable Kitsch Pop style. BURN DOWN THE DISCO is a thrilling and fiendishly fun homage to the mavericks, misfits, maulers and madmen who laugh in the face of danger as they build a new dawn upon the ashes of the disco inferno.
Australia’s leading Pop artist delivers a veritable Technicolour roller-coaster of gloriously hyper-Kitsch imagery and dystopian Pop menace that sees Johnny Romeo craft his most visually striking works to date. Teeming with an unbridled ferocity and an irrepressible Pop slickness, BURN DOWN THE DISCO transports audiences on a visceral and emotionally charged deep dive into the twisted rabbit hole of Pop culture. Colours virtually burst from the canvas with the subtlety of a molotov cocktail, as Romeo employs a fiery arsenal of acid-tinged neon colours and sugar pastel hues to imbue his paintings with a complex and volatile emotional gravitas.
BURN DOWN THE DISCO bristles with a raw, primal energy that courses through each of its works like shots of pure adrenaline. Animals, who feature heavily in the series, are depicted as larger-than-life embodiments of freedom and lawlessness, as Johnny Romeo cheekily transforms owls into intergalactic hip hop moguls and grizzly bears into neon-drenched surfers conquering the great waves of the Kitsch Pop wasteland. Romeo’s fascination with the animal kingdom, in particular the motif of the tiger, strikes at the heart of his latest body of work. Referenced throughout the series, the tiger acts as a potent symbol of legacy, resilience and survival, a creature untethered by limitations or possibilities that calls on the audience to ‘embrace the beast within’.
Inspired by The Smiths’ iconic 1986 indie rock single ‘Panic’, BURN DOWN THE DISCO is characterised by a revolutionary desire to be bold and relentless, to dismantle outdated traditions by forging new paths into the unknown. Romeo’s slick, Kitsch Pop stylings take on a decidedly nihilistic turn in his latest series, as the artist creates imposing renditions of infamous comic book villains, historical anti-heroes and notorious rulers such as Ned Kelly, The Joker and Napoleon Bonaparte. Dripping with an undeniable attitude, the artist portrays these figures as pistol-toting cowboys, cosmic bushrangers and tribal tattooed generals hell-bent on ‘kicking down their idols’ and making their mark in the world by any means possible. Inspired by the films of Martin Scorsese, the feverish intensity and bare-knuckled grit with which Romeo approaches these works poignantly captures the darker sides of ambition and toxic masculinity, where the desire to take on the world degenerates into senseless violence and destruction.
Much like the music of The Smiths, however, Johnny Romeo masterfully tempers the caustic and confrontational elements of his new series with a delightfully quirky and off-beat sense of humour that rails against the staid complacency of contemporary Pop culture. Rock’n’roll lyrics, gangster rap bars, Hollywood film names and Internet memes all take on a new life in BURN DOWN THE DISCO, as the artist pushes his signature blend of vibrant imagery and savvy word assemblages to deliciously Absurdist heights. Romeo drags vintage Pop culture and historical imagery kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, using juxtaposition, humour and razor-sharp wordplay to provide pithy commentary on contemporary issues ranging from meme culture, to nationalism and mental health.
BURN DOWN THE DISCO is a knockout series from Australia’s King of Pop that bursts at the seams with Johnny Romeo’s most explosive colour arrangements, fiendishly slick linework and biting satirical observations to date. Taking his signature Pop stylings to gloriously Kitsch and unflinchingly vicious extremes, Romeo’s latest series is a celebration and critique of our primal and animalistic nature, of our desire to set the dancefloor ablaze and start anew in a savagely thrilling Technicolour world where the only law is the law of the wild.
Opening reception with Artist: Thursday 26th March 2020 | 6-8pm @ Linton & Kay Galleries, Subiaco Gallery / 299 Railway Road (Corner Nicholson Rd) Subiaco WA | +61 8 9388 3300
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s BURN DOWN THE DISCO can be made directly through Linton & Kay Galleries (subiaco@lintonandkay.com.au) or by calling the gallery on +61 8 9388 3300
lintonandkay.com.au
RSVP for Opening Night is essential.
RSVP to: subiaco@lintonandkay.com.au
Email for a catalogue to: subiaco@lintonandkay.com.au
Exhibition Dates: 21st March – 12th April 12th, 2020.
Johnny Romeo
TO THE EXTREME
New Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo makes his triumphant return to Sydney with his electrifying new series TO THE EXTREME. Following on from his celebrated and sold-out 2018 Sydney show The Last Days of Disco, Australia’s leading culture jammer and Pop artist delivers an exhilarating collection of new original works that pushes the Pop envelope and celebrates the visionary spirit of those who dare to dream and stand out from the pack. The series is a gloriously playful sugar rush through Romeo’s warped Pop visions of the modern world that sees Australia’s King of Pop deliver his most confident and unapologetically Pop works to date.
Drawing its title from Vanilla Ice’s 1989 debut album of the same name, TO THE EXTREME ramps up everything that we have come to expect from Romeo’s inimitable Kitsch Pop style and pushes it to the next level. Colours leap from the canvass with the visual impact of a sun-kissed sucker punch, as the artist masterfully plunders and re-appropriates iconic imagery from Pop culture and art history to create dazzling works that speak to the absurdity of our contemporary experience. Romeo takes his penchant for witty irreverence and tongue-in-cheek humour to joyously absurd peaks, as he creates a no-holds barred Technicolour block party where eccentric artistic geniuses, jazz songbirds and rockstar felines prance and prowl through the dance floor of Pop culture.
For Johnny Romeo, ‘to the extreme’ is a powerful statement of intent, a maxim of radical self-confidence where visionaries and risk-takers push themselves to the limit to make their dreams a reality. There is an irrepressible sense of hopefulness and optimism that courses throughout each of the works in the series, and in particular through the artist’s cheeky depiction of animals. TO THE EXTREME hosts a veritable menagerie of bombastic beasts who have all risen above their limitations to embrace their true callings. In Romeo’s delightfully warped Kitsch Pop world, friendly guard dogs are hilariously transformed into rap moguls, humble rodents become hip-hoppin’ superheroes, and apes take on the outrageous personas of hedonistic Las Vegas party animals.
The thrilling and life-affirming confidence that lies at the conceptual core of TO THE EXTREME is reflected with immense gusto through the series’ slick graphic imagery and powerful use of colour. Each work drips with undeniable swagger, as concentrated bursts of Technicolour hues inject a vibrant liveliness to Romeo’s Kitsch Pop visions that perfectly distills the larger-than-life ambition and relentless drive of dreamers charging through life at full steam. Bursting with taut, refined line-work, Romeo’s Kitsch Pop renditions of Pop culture icons and celebrity creatures dominate his canvasses with a magnetic presence that showcase the artist at his most commanding and defiantly Pop.
Living life to the extreme often means embracing the absurdities of life head on, a sentiment which Johnny Romeo captures with a gleefully anarchic sense of humour in his latest series. Renowned for his razor sharp wit and knack for clever wordplay, Romeo satirises the chaos of modern life through skilfully weaving together seemingly disparate Pop culture and art history references, ranging from Baroque art and silent films to hip hop, goth and the urban organic food movement. The frenetic interplay between imagery and text reflects the immense influence of music on the artist’s work, and recalls both the improvisational looseness of free jazz and the slick, rhythmic punchiness of hip hop.
A thrilling homage to the world’s dreamers and daredevils, the latest series from Australia’s King of Pop takes his signature blend of vibrant colour arrangements, Absurdist humour and slick Pop imagery to breathtaking new heights as he pushes his inimitable Kitsch Pop style to the extreme. In the booming, neon-drenched Pop block party that is Johnny Romeo’s TO THE EXTREME, everyone is free to be themselves and anything goes.
RSVP to attend the opening of Johnny Romeo’s TO THE EXTREME is essential.
RSVP to: rsvp@harveygalleries.com.au
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s TO THE EXTREME can be made directly through Harvey Galleries (admin@harveygalleries.com.au) or by calling the gallery on +61 2 9968 2153
Exhibition Dates: 6th December – 15th December 2019.
Johnny Romeo
ROCKA ROLLA
Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo makes his thunderous return to Canberra with his electrifying new retrospective, ROCKA ROLLA. The survey, expertly curated by Aarwun Gallery, brings together an array of iconic Romeo paintings from Australian and international collections spanning the artist’s illustrious decade-plus career. ROCKA ROLLA delivers an eclectic selection of visual gems that recalls the giddy excitement of an old-school mix tape while showcasing Johnny Romeo as one of the world’s leading culture jammers. Bombastic and unapologetically irreverent, Romeo’s fusion of off-beat humour, sly cultural references and surreal imagery reconfigures our everyday Pop reality into vibrant slices of Kitsch Pop brilliance.
Erupting on to the Australian commercial art scene in 2007, Johnny Romeo is a veritable tour de force in the international art world who has dazzled audiences around the globe with his delightfully quirky visions of Pop culture. ROCKA ROLLA offers audiences a brilliant insight into the evolution of Australia’s leading Pop artist, exhibiting iconic Romeo paintings that have been extensively sourced from local and international collections. From the grungy, stream-of-consciousness graffiti punk of his earlier period to the sleek, neon-drenched Technicolour Pop of his later work, the retrospective is a testament to Romeo’s masterful ability to push the envelope of Pop Art while continuing to carve out his inimitable Neo-Expressionist Pop style.
Taking its title from the debut album of iconic heavy metal masters Judas Priest, ROCKA ROLLA captures the glorious Technicolour maximalism that has made Johnny Romeo one of the most vital voices in contemporary Pop Art. The cheeky reference to the bruising purveyors of British Steel reflects the exhilarating dynamism of Johnny Romeo’s paintings, which roar with the fiery energy and fist-pumping attitude of heavy metal anthems. Romeo’s signature blend of frenetic imagery, explosive Technicolour arrangements and rambunctious word assemblages create dazzling visions of a hyper-saturated Pop world where rampant advertising and the cult of celebrity are the new rock’n’roll.
As a world-renowned culture jammer, Johnny Romeo gleefully plunders the canon of Pop culture to re-envisage classic Pop icons in humorous and refreshing new ways. The artist draws from the full spectrum of Pop culture, sampling everything from comic book heroes and classic pin-up girls, to rock’n’roll legends and Hollywood heartthrobs, and turning them on their head. Romeo toys with our sense of nostalgia and collective memory, ingeniously using the pulp fiction and cult imagery of the past to subvert our preconceptions of Pop culture and empower us to see the world in an exhilaratingly different light.
Johnny Romeo’s rambunctious blend of exuberant imagery and textual witticisms skewers the zany absurdity of modern life and ruptures our sense of the familiar within Pop culture. Evoking the spirit of Pop Art provocateurs like Jeff Koons and Mel Ramos, Romeo craftily melds the rhythmic punchiness of hip hop and rock’n’roll lyrics to the catchy jargon of advertising to inject new life into Pop culture icons such as Freddie Mercury and Betty Boop.
ROCKA ROLLA is a thrilling retrospective of visual gems old and new that draws deep from Johnny Romeo’s celebrated career as a world-leading Pop auteur. Brimming with neon-drenched Technicolour explosions, bold imagery and razor-sharp wit, the series offers audiences a kaleidoscopic trip through the creative mind of Australia’s King of Pop.
Opening reception with Artist: Friday 20th September 2019 | 6-8pm @ Aarwun Gallery
11 Federation Square, Gold Creek, Nicholls, ACT, Australia. Ph: +61 2 6230 2055
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s ROCKA ROLLA can be made directly through Aarwun Gallery (aarwuncanberra@bigpond.com) or by calling the gallery on 61 2 6230 2055
RSVP for Opening Night is essential.
RSVP to: aarwuncanberra@bigpond.com
Exhibition Dates: 20th September – 6th October 2019
Johnny Romeo
MARQUEE MOON
New Paintings
July 14th, 1977. A freak storm has ripped through New York, cutting out all power and plunging the city into darkness. Chaos reigns the streets, as violence, looting and arson erupt throughout a sweltering New York teetering on the edge of destruction.
Amidst this dramatic backdrop, internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo makes his fiery return to Tasmania with his thrilling new exhibition, MARQUEE MOON. Following celebrated and sell out shows in New York, Sydney, the Gold Coast and Auckland in late 2018 and early 2019, Australia’s leading culture jammer delivers an incendiary collection of new original paintings that plunges headfirst into the mayhem and restless energy of the infamous 1977 New York Blackouts. The series showcases Romeo’s inimitable Kitsch Pop style at its most confident and vivacious, as bursts of surreal imagery and vibrant colour arrangements gloriously collide in an explosive celebration of the dreamers who dare to follow their calling amidst a city on the brink or ruin.
MARQUEE MOON takes its name from the towering 1977 debut record from renowned American art-punks Television. The album’s sprawling 10-minute centrepiece ‘Marquee Moon’, in particular, acts as the conceptual backbone to Romeo’s latest series. Despite being released months before the New York Blackouts, lead singer Tom Verlaine’s lyrical exploration of a man’s journey from the darkness of self-doubt to the hopefulness of following his dreams powerfully captures both the madness that engulfed New York City in 1977, and the promise of rebirth that lay in its wake. The ‘marquee moon’, as the single source of light on New York’s darkest night, becomes a central metaphor within Romeo’s series for taking control of your life, radically embracing freedom and creating meaning in a crazy world.
The series bristles with an irrepressible, primal energy that evokes the harsh summer heat and civil unrest that threatened to tear apart the very fabric of New York City. Romeo cheekily re-envisions the world of the 1977 NYC Blackouts as a neon-drenched concrete jungle, where the danger of lawlessness is tinged with the promise of new beginnings. Technicolour beasts parading as rock stars and superheroes rub shoulders with Pop culture icons as they swagger through the mean streets of the Big Apple, all eager to make something of themselves among the rotten core of an urban wasteland. Tom Verlaine’s insistent yelp of ‘the kiss of death, the embrace of life’ in the song ‘Marquee Moon’ is transformed into a powerful statement of intent within the series, a point captured masterfully through Romeo’s vibrant colour arrangements and bold, graphic imagery.
Despite the grungy, urban setting of the New York blackouts, the series urges audiences to see the ‘marquee moon’ as a symbol for dreaming, a clarion call to look up to the heavens and rise above the mayhem of the world below. Classic science fiction and comic book imagery are cleverly weaved throughout the series, creating a Technicolour lunar landscape where the freedom to dream is found in the limitless possibilities of space and flight. The artist masterfully translates the soaring, celestial melodies and spacey ruminations of Television’s ‘Marquee Moon’ into electrifying odes to escapism that are charged with a palpable sense of urgency.
Johnny Romeo’s penchant for inspired, eclectic Pop culture references is taken to soaring new heights in MARQUEE MOON, with the artist employing his signature razor-sharp wit and spirited wordplay to create a visual love-letter to the year 1977. Bold word assemblages rife with hilarious double-entendres cascade off each canvass, calling to mind iconic music and film from 1977 ranging from the hard rock swagger of KISS and Ram Jam, to the seductive new wave of Blondie and the intergalactic adventurousness of Star Wars. The focus on 1977 cleverly emphasizes the vital role that the New York Blackouts had on shaping the future of Pop culture and its role in both galvanizing punk rock as a movement and giving birth to hip hop.
MARQUEE MOON is a bombastic celebration of the renegades and visionaries who dare to find meaning in chaos, and strive to forge new beginnings amongst the ruins of a world in crisis. Brimming with offbeat humour, explosive colour arrangements, and graphic gusto, the series sees Australia’s King of Pop re-envision the urban decay of the 1977 New York Blackouts as a feverishly frenetic Technicolour wasteland, where the only hope for redemption can be found under the glow of the Marquee Moon.
Opening reception with Artist – Friday 2nd August, 2019 | 5:30-7:30pm at Penny Contemporary,
187 Liverpool Street, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia | www.pennycontemporary.com.au
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s MARQUEE MOON can be made directly through Penny Contemporary (info@pennycontemporary.com.au) or by calling the gallery on +61 3 6231 5655 or Sonia on +61 438 292 673
Exhibition Dates: August 2nd – 26th 2019.
Johnny Romeo
IN A MOONAGE DAYDREAM
New Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo skyrockets back to New Zealand with his electrifying series, IN A MOONAGE DAYDREAM. The dynamic collection of new works marks Romeo’s thrilling return to New Zealand following his critically renowned and sold-out exhibition ‘The Arthouse Series’ at Auckland’s 12 Gallery in 2017. Brimming with larger-than-life colour arrangements and bombastic, tongue-in-cheek imagery, the series vibrantly celebrates the pioneers and radicals who push the limits of what is possible, and dare to dream. IN A MOONAGE DAYDREAM is a visual feast for the senses that sees Australia’s leading Pop artist and culture jammer take his inimitable Kitsch Pop style to cosmic new heights as he explores what it means to make dreams a reality.
The moon plays a central role within the series, acting as an elevated visual symbol that signals a time for dreaming. As the only celestial body outside of Earth that humanity has been able to walk on, the moon acts as a conceptual focal point for the series, highlighting the power of aiming heavenwards and overcoming adversity to achieve the impossible. Johnny Romeo cleverly acknowledges the significance of the moon by opening the exhibition on Friday 21 June, the date of the Winter Solstice in the Southern hemisphere. Known for the being the longest night of the year, Romeo has used this opportunity to allow his audiences to dream a little longer in their own moonage reverie.
For Johnny Romeo, the ‘moonage daydream’ is a state of mind, a space for electrified, far-out ideas where visionaries courageously carve their own paths through the exhilarating terrain of the unknown. The series is filled to the brim with allusions to speed, space and elevation, as Pop culture and historical luminaries are ingeniously transformed into pioneering early 20th Century aviators, rambunctious racecar prodigies and galactic emperors. In Romeo’s Technicolour daydream, speed and movement are king, acting as potent symbols for ambition, where boundaries and limitations are gleefully ruptured in a haze of smoke, screeching tyres, and rocket fuel.
This sense of triumph and perpetual forward motion is captured with undeniable flair in the series, with Johnny Romeo delivering some his most brash and confident works to date. Concentrated bursts of colour explode off the canvass with the sugary rush of a psychedelic fever dream, imbuing the works with a trippy effervescence that evokes fantasies of neon-drenched lunar landscapes. Dripping with an undeniable swagger, Romeo’s latest collection of paintings possess an invigorating graphic gusto that visually distills the fierce ambition and fiery bravado of stars and trailblazers hell-bent on glory.
An eclectic array of musical and cultural references abound throughout IN A MOONAGE DAYDREAM. The series draws its title from ‘Moonage Daydream’, a lesser-known cut from David Bowie’s classic 1972 album ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust’. Inspired by the song’s absurdist space age
lyricism and diverse instrumental palette, the artist gleefully mashes together diverse references ranging from bebop jazz and classic rock, to classic sci-fi, American gothic literature and Japanese anime, and reconfigures them into deliciously warped Neo-Expressionist Pop visions. Romeo injects each painting with his signature blend of offbeat humour and razor-sharp wit, masterfully fusing imagery and word assemblages to conjure the sensory overload of acid-soaked lucid dreams.
IN A MOONAGE DAYDREAM is a thrilling homage to the radicals and adventurers who fearlessly push the boundaries, reach for the stars, and dare to dream. Fusing psychedelic fields of colour, brash imagery and delightfully absurdist humour with a need for speed, Australia’s King of Pop has crafted a scintillating Kitsch-Pop experience that transports audiences across the candy-coated expanses of the Pop universe and invites them to get lost in their own moonage daydream.
Opening reception with Artist – Friday 21st June, 2019 | 6-9pm @12_gallery, Auckland.
12 Gallery | 9D Vernon Street, Auckland 1010, New Zealand | www.12gallery.com
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s IN A MOONAGE DAYDREAM works can be made directly through 12 Gallery (info@12gallery.com) or by calling the gallery on +64 21 501 911.
Exhibition Dates: June 21st – July 12th, 2019.
Johnny Romeo
DREAM-LAND
New Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo makes his triumphant return to the Gold Coast with his hypnotic new exhibition, DREAM-LAND. Fresh off the back of critically acclaimed and sold out shows in New York and Sydney in late 2018, Romeo takes a deep dive into the realm of the subconscious to create a mind altering, kaleidoscopic new series of works that explores Surrealism’s fascination with dreams. The series is a thrilling homage to the work of renowned Surrealist Rene Magritte that has been masterfully curated by Romeo and Terri Lew of 19 Karen Contemporary Artspace. Tearing through the barriers between the real and the imaginary like a neon-drenched fever dream, DREAM-LAND delivers electrifying Kitsch Pop renditions of iconic Magritte works that showcase Australia’s King of Pop at his most psychedelic and sublime.
Surrealism has long been a major influence on Johnny Romeo’s gleefully Absurdist take on Pop Art. However, in DREAM-LAND, Romeo takes his penchant for Surrealist imagery to dazzling new heights, transforming his inimitable Neo-Expressionist Pop stylings into engrossing dreamscapes that blur the lines between the real and the surreal. Taking its title from Edgar Allan Poe’s 1844 poem ‘Dream-Land’, the series is a psychotropic journey through the subconscious that subverts familiar elements, such as Pop culture icons and everyday objects, and re-envisages them in bold, incongruous ways that challenge our perceptions of reality. Romeo’s signature Technicolour palette takes on an electrifyingly hallucinatory feel, as concentrated bursts of candy coloured hues explode off the canvass with the feverish intensity of a lucid dream.
Johnny Romeo masterfully draws on the works of Rene Magritte, appropriating the artist’s unsettling inventory of dream imagery as a means of fusing the psychological introspection of Surrealism with the eye-popping brashness of the Pop world. Recurring motifs found throughout Magritte’s work are given a refreshingly contemporary Kitsch Pop spin throughout DREAM-LAND, as Romeo filters iconic symbols such as the mysterious suited man, apples, bowler hats and mirrors through his delightfully warped Pop sensibilities. Romeo has created his most compositionally sophisticated paintings to date, using Magritte’s works as the basis for pushing his arrangements forward in a tighter, more representational direction without sacrificing the punk-edge that he has become known for.
DREAM-LAND is, in many ways, a celebration of real-life dream-weavers and modern day Surrealists within Pop culture. Bringing together a roster of icons across the spectrum of art, music and fashion, the series examines the way in which visionaries such as Yayoi Kusama and Karl Lagerfeld altered the everyday into the extraordinary by redefining the limits of our perceptible reality. For Romeo, these modern alchemists, like the Surrealists, pushed the boundaries of creativity and invited their audience to question what lies beyond the surface of what we can see, to break free from the boundaries of the visible world and breathe life into our dreams.
Music references abound throughout DREAM-LAND, as Johnny Romeo showcases his uncanny knack for visually distilling eclectic sounds into his works. Characterised by their taut, sleek imagery and otherworldly colour palette, the paintings in the series evoke the dreamy melodies of classic 1960’s guitar pop and the swirling, hypnotic fuzz of psych rock to create a perfect harmony between Surrealism and Pop. Lyrics strewn from artists such as the Sex Pistols, Jeff Buckley, Lou Reed, and in particular, the iconic Pop-inflected psychedelia of The Beatles, are chopped and re-interpreted through Romeo’s gleefully irreverent Kitsch Pop filter, cascading across the works like the searing vestiges of a long forgotten dream.
DREAM-LAND is a visual feast for the senses that invites audiences to take a plunge down the rabbit hole of Johnny Romeo’s surreal Pop visions. An intoxicating brew of Surrealist imagery, mind-bending colour arrangements and pulsating Pop slickness, the series sees Australia’s leading Pop artist journey across the vast expanses of the subconscious to create his very own DREAM-LAND.
Opening Night: Saturday 25th May, 2019 with an intimate dinner in the gallery. This exclusive event will be invitation only for a strictly limited number of people. Open to the general public on Tuesday 28th May.
19 Karen | 19 Karen Avenue, Mermaid Beach QLD, Australia | www.19karen.com.au
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s DREAM-LAND opening night or works can be made directly through 19Karen (info@19karen.com.au) or by calling the gallery on +61 7 5554 5019 or Terri on +61 407 753 958.
Exhibition Dates: May 25th, 2019 – June 22nd, 2019.