Johnny Romeo
SPACE INVADERS
New Paintings
When the universe feels overwhelming and modern life shrinks you down, the bravest thing you can do is stand your ground and take up space. In his thunderous return to Boyd-Dunlop Gallery in Napier, New Zealand, internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo dares us to push beyond our limits with his thrilling new series, Space Invaders. Fusing space-age iconography, vibrant Surrealism and sugar-rush playfulness, Romeo’s latest body of work sees Australia’s King of Pop catapult his distinctive Kitsch Pop style to the stratosphere. Space Invaders conjures a thrilling Technicolour cosmos of galactic glam rockers, gravity-defying heroines and stargazing beasts who unapologetically dominate the canvas with swagger and drive, unafraid to be seen and express themselves with conviction as they occupy the space they rightfully deserve.
Taking its name from the classic 1978 video game of the same title, Space Invaders is a triumphant statement of intent that calls on us to be larger than life, to make our presence felt and transcend our weaknesses. Throughout the series, Johnny Romeo has assembled a motley crew of rebels and visionaries bursting from the pages of art history, comic books and Pop culture who don’t just fill the canvas, they command it. Space Invaders features some of Romeo’s most compositionally adventurous and explosively colourful paintings to date, as marbled Renaissance icons with rockstar ambitions, bombastic beasts and death-defying superheroes stretch the pictorial plane to its very edges, pressing against its boundaries, and asserting their existence with swagger and confidence. Whether portraying a Great Ape, the late great David Bowie, or the Silver Surfer conquering ‘Hokusai’s Great Wave’, Romeo uses Kitsch Pop as a visual language to create an electrifying Technicolour universe that encourages us to expand our horizons, occupy the world without apology, and strive for greatness.
Space Invaders launches the notion of ‘taking up space’ up through the heavens and out into the cosmos. References to flight and celestial bodies abound throughout the exhibition as skateboarding geishas shred through the air with effortless grace, and aspirational ape astronauts find purpose through the final frontiers of space travel. For these intrepid voyagers, taking to the skies and venturing out into the galactic unknown enables them to rise above the hum-drum banality of everyday life, and be elevated beyond physical limitations into a realm of infinite possibilities. Romeo cleverly fuses astronomical wonder with lunar mysticism across the series, using the moon as a recurring motif to denote a state of enlightenment and radical transformation. From ghoulish rockabilly crooners being re-animated through the bewitching glow of the moon to intergalactic rock legends harnessing the power of sacred lunar geometry, the moon’s hypnotic pull empowers us to step outside the norm and be bigger than ourselves.
Fusing absurdist humour with mind-bending Surrealist imagery, Space Invaders takes us on a psychedelic journey through the rabbit hole of Johnny Romeo’s gleefully warped Kitsch Pop psyche. The artist plays with our perception of reality through trippy depictions of third-eyed cats in mid-metamorphosis, and tortured art heroines duplicating their face into multiple personas. By collapsing the boundary between the tangible and the imaginary, Romeo reminds us that being a ‘space invader’ is as much about expanding your territory within your own mind as it is about claiming the space you deserve in the real world.
Space Invaders is a riotous Kitsch Pop manifesto of self-empowerment brimming with Romeo’s razor-sharp wit, exuberant colour arrangements and maximalist, larger-than-life vision. In a world that all too often demands us to be small, Australia’s King of Pop dares us to live loudly, dream big and defiantly make our presence felt by not just taking up space, but invading it.
Opening Night: Friday 10th April, 2026 @ 5:00 – 7:00pm.
Boyd Dunlop Gallery, 4 Hastings Street, Napier South, Napier 4110, New Zealand. Ph: +64 6 835 9681.
RSVP to attend the opening of Johnny Romeo’s SPACE INVADERS is essential.
RSVP to: info@boyddunlop.com
Any inquiries regarding Johnny Romeo’s SPACE INVADERS exhibition can be made directly through Boyd Dunlop Gallery (info@boyddunlop.com) or by calling the gallery on +64 6 835 9681.
Exhibition Dates: 10th April – 30th April 2026.
March 15, 2026