Johnny Romeo
WASTED YEARS
12 New Paintings
@ 12 Gallery in association with Allpress Gallery, 8 Drake Street, Freemans Bay, Auckland, New Zealand.
Opening Reception Friday, November 28th 2014 – 6-8:30pm.
For any enquiries: +64 21 501 911
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop artist Johnny Romeo has a new association with renowned London gallery Panter & Hall.
Described by GQ Australia as ‘part punk, part pop’, Romeo’s unique style has been generating massive buzz in the international art scene. The association will see the acclaimed pop artist exhibit four of his signature super-hero works with Panter & Hall. Drawing heavily on comic book aesthetics and the cartoons of his youth, Johnny Romeo’s vivacious, Technicolour appropriations of super-heroes are world-renowned.
Established in 2000, Panter & Hall has showcased works from exciting new talent and some of the most celebrated named in 20th Century Art. In 2013, Seven Magazine (Telegraph UK) featured Panter & Hall as one of the best private art galleries in the world.
Johnny Romeo’s work is featured in an ABC documentary program called ‘Conquest Of Space: Science Fiction & Contemporary Art’ that explores leading Australian artists who create art inspired by science fiction.
The documentary is written and presented by Andrew Frost and screens tomorrow night 21st October on ABC Arts.
Johnny Romeo joins Art Equity Singapore –
Internationally acclaimed Australian pop painter Johnny Romeo is proud to announce his explosive Asian debut show. Slated for Singapore in March 2015, the exhibition will be hosted by Art Equity Singapore. Brimming with his signature bombastic, Neo-Expressionist Pop energy, Johnny Romeo’s debut Asian show will be an incendiary showcase from Australia’s leading Pop Art powerhouse that promises to make huge waves in the Asian art scene.
Johnny Romeo
ICONS
New Paintings
ICONS, the exhilarating latest series from internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo, is a playfully irreverent exploration of youthful nostalgia, kitsch and pop culture. Featuring a list of beloved childhood icons curated by art director Casey Gleghorn of CG Projects, Romeo has returned with some of the most bombastic and gloriously Pop paintings of his career.
With his penchant for electrifying Technicolour arrangements, Neo-Expressionist urgency and larger than life line-work, Johnny Romeo has crafted a thrilling series of works that examines our relationship with childhood symbols, and the way in which innocence is commodified through the Pop culture machine.
Like the most forward thinking of pop tunes, the immediacy and accessibility of Romeo’s works belies the rich cornucopia of influences and ideas that simmer below the surface. An avid devotee of pop culture, ICONS sees Johnny Romeo as the consummate post-modern sampler, gleefully combing through the canon of American pop culture to create paintings that eclectically reconfigure elements of Americana, hip-hop, rock’n’roll, cartoons and advertising.
ICONS sees Johnny Romeo at his most garish and boisterous. Lively and hyper-saturated, Romeo’s colourful take on classic icons such as Mickey Mouse and Roger Rabbit drips with an irresistible humour that mirrors the glorious kitsch of Jeff Koons. Romeo’s cleverly Absurdist amalgamation of cartoon imagery, product placement and pithy text references transforms his canvases into hilarious mock advertisements that look at the intersection between nostalgia, schlock culture and rampant commercialisation.
Painted with slick, commanding lines and confectionary-sweet hues, Johnny Romeo’s appropriation of classic cartoon characters captures the saccharine joy of youthful whimsy while remaining refreshingly contemporary. In doing so, Romeo pays homage to his influences, such as Ronnie Cutrone, Kenny Scharf and Keith Haring. Conjuring the spirit of Cutrone’s recontextualised comic book heroes, Icons’s appropriation of beloved cartoon characters and products challenges our understanding of originality and authorship, and blurs the line between fine art and lowbrow culture. The barely-contained exuberance of Johnny Romeo’s Kool Aid Man, with its ecstatic ‘Oh Yeah!’ emblazoned across the canvas, evokes Richard Prince and the giddy joys of crass commercialism.
With his bold, unwavering lines, sumptuous mastery of colour, and potent use traditional scroll, anchor and rose motifs, Johnny Romeo’s latest series sees him fully embrace the influence of vintage Sailor Jerry tattoos. The rich references to tattoo iconography imbue his childhood symbols with a righteous rock’n’roll edge. The allusion to tattoo culture enables Romeo to explore the notion of permanence, and question how classic icons of yesteryear endure under a constantly shifting cultural climate.
Influenced by the urban grittiness and rhythmic urgency of hip-hop, ICONS bristles with an irrepressible energy and a ferociously fun flow. Echoing the punchy hooks of street poets spitting hardened rhymes, Romeo has created an exhilarating and humorously jarring juxtaposition between the street-wise braggadocio of hip-hop and the wholesomeness of cartoon icons. The works are littered with incisive, iconic hip-hop references, from Heavy D. & The Boyz’ ‘Funky But Chunky’ burly mash-up with Popeye the Sailor Man, to Romeo’s sauntering fusion of Betty Boop and the Notorious BIG’s ‘Nasty Girl’.
This is exemplified in ‘Sweet Beet’, where Romeo cheekily subverts the squeaky clean innocence of Mickey Mouse with the spirited gangsta wordplay of ‘got to keep your swagger’. Tongue firmly in cheek, Romeo re-envisions Mickey Mouse as a Technicolour Kanye West, a wise-cracking MC trying to remain relevant and ‘swag’ in the ever changing tides of pop culture. The darker, more turgid blues of the work reflect a tacit recognition that in today’s world, the childhood heroes of the past are no longer heroes.
ICONS is a triumphantly exuberant series that sees Johnny Romeo at the top of his game. Masterfully teetering the line between hip-hop swagger, urban edginess and saccharine kitsch, the works offer an invigorating and gleefully rambunctious re-envisioning of childhood icons.
With Johnny Romeo in attendance, ICONS opens at 6-9pm on Friday 3rd October at CG PROJECTS, 140 West Fourth St, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, 17701, USA. The exhibition will run until November 1st.
For any enquiries: contact@cgartprojects.com
+1 570-435-7080
Johnny Romeo
ICONS
New Paintings
ICONS, the exhilarating latest series from internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo, is a playfully irreverent exploration of youthful nostalgia, kitsch and pop culture.
Romeo’s unmistakably colourful take on classic icons such as Mickey Mouse and Roger Rabbit drips with an irresistible humour that mirrors the glorious kitsch of Jeff Koons and the larger-than-life comic book appropriations of Ronnie Cutrone.
By cleverly amalgamating cartoon imagery, product placement and pithy text references with his signature Neo-Expressionist Pop flair, Johnny Romeo transforms his canvases into hilarious mock advertisements that comment on the intersection between nostalgia, schlock culture and crass commercialism.
Through re-envisioning beloved childhood icons such as Popeye the Sailor Man, ET and Betty Boop, the series cleverly challenges our understanding of originality and authorship, and blurs the line between fine art and lowbrow culture
With Johnny Romeo in attendance, ICONS opens at 6-9pm on Friday 3rd October at CG PROJECTS, 140 West Fourth St, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, 17701, USA. The exhibition will run until November 1st.
For any enquiries: contact@cgartprojects.com
www.cgartprojects.com
+1 570-435-7080
Johnny Romeo
ICONS
New Paintings
Following a series of sell-out shows in Australia and the US, internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo returns with his latest body of work, ICONS.
With his flair for electrifying Technicolour arrangements, Neo-Expressionist urgency and larger than life line-work, ICONS showcases some of Romeo’s most bombastic and Pop works yet.
Appropriating beloved childhood icons such as Popeye the Sailor Man, Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop, the series challenges our understanding of originality and authorship, and blurs the line between fine art and lowbrow culture. Boisterous, invigoratingly energetic and unapologetically kitsch, ICONS sees Johnny Romeo at the top of his game.
With Johnny Romeo in attendance, ICONS opens at 6-9pm on Friday 3rd October 2014 at CG PROJECTS, 140 West Fourth St, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, 17701, USA. The exhibition will run until November 1st.
For any enquiries: contact@cgartprojects.com | www.cgartprojects.com | +1 570-435-7080
Johnny Romeo featured in the latest issue of Artist Profile magazine – Issue 28 / 2014. Pages 116 – 118. An interesting technical essay titled ‘The Soft Approach’ by A.J.Edwards.
We Made It, in association with Petra Gallerie, is proud to present Johnny Romeo | TOO WEST COAST | Editions on Paper.
TOO WEST COAST sees We Made It burst on to the scene with an explosive launch party at Beverley Hill’s Petra Gallerie, featuring the leading face of Australian Pop Art, Johnny Romeo.
Spanning Romeo’s celebrated career, the open edition series is a lovingly crafted visual mix-tape of Johnny Romeo’s inimitable Neo-Expressionist Pop charm. Kaleidoscopic colour explosions collide with an invigorating, punk-pop grittiness to form works that burst at the seams with an intoxicating swag that is well and truly Too West Coast.
Johnny Romeo will be in attendance on the evening.
Also there will be a drawing for a signed Jimi Hendrix print! So bring your business card or information. Must be in attendance to win!
Refreshments and one of LA’s best gourmet food trucks! Brune’s Creole Soul Kitchen.
Music by DJ Azmyth.
Opening: Petra Gallerie | Saturday July 12th 2014 | 8pm-12am
1149 South Robertson SORO
Beverly Hills, California
+1 310-247-0252
www.wemadeit.co
www.petragallerie.com
OPENING NIGHT
Johnny Romeo
DIRTY BOULEVARD
New Paintings @ Penny Contemporary, Hobart Tasmania, Australia.
187 Liverpool Street, Hobart Tasmania.
June 13th – July 14th 2014
Any enquires concerning Johnny Romeo’s DIRTY BOULEVARD
can be made directly through Penny Contemporary (info@pennycontemporary.com.au) or by calling the gallery on +61 3 6231 5655.