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.
Johnny Romeo
THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO
New Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop Artist Johnny Romeo makes his thunderous return to Sydney with his exhilarating new series, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO. Coming off the back of a sell-out exhibition at the Australian Consulate-General in New York and rapturously received shows in Perth and Canberra, Australia’s King of Pop delivers a knockout body of works that raises the bar for Neo-Expressionist Pop on the global stage. THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO is an electrifying trip down the kaleidoscopic rabbit hole of Pop culture, where the exuberant kitschness of Pop is fused with the thrill of the Absurd to capture a world where the old order is dead, and the possibilities of the new are limitless.
Inspired by the restless energy and unbridled creative potential of New York at the end of the 1970s, the title THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO is a colourful celebration of new dawns. The end of disco for Romeo is not so much a literal period or musical style, but rather something symbolic of a proverbial changing of the guard – the end of the old and the birth of the new. There is a tantalising irreverence to Johnny Romeo’s latest paintings, a desire to push his Technicolour Pop visions into edgy new terrains that mirror the exhilarating lawlessness of punk and hip hop in their early days, as they emerged from the ashes of the discotheque. Brimming with an undeniable swagger, the series cheekily contorts familiar popular imagery into brash, refreshingly original compositions that envision a future of Pop culture drenched in brilliant Technicolour.
At the same time, many of the paintings in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO reflect Johnny Romeo’s fascination with art history. Amidst the artist’s tongue-in-cheek renditions of icons such as Michael Jackson, Winston Churchill and KISS lays a cornucopia of references to major artists and historic art movements, ranging from Christian Orthodox hagiography, to Impressionism and Dadaism. Romeo’s visual sampling and remixing of works by art luminaries such as Paul Cézanne and René Magritte represents a thrilling new direction for the artist, as he daringly blurs the lines between ‘high brow’ and ‘low brow’ culture, and what is considered sacred and kitsch.
Surrealism, in particular, has been hugely influential in the development of the series. Romeo amps up the Absurdist bent of his works with gleeful abandon, transforming beloved world leaders into animals, sanctifying pop stars and even breaking through the visual fourth wall through the rap symbology of Kendrick Lamar. Throughout THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, the psychotropic spirit of Surrealism is tempered with Romeo’s uncompromisingly vibrant take on Pop Art, resulting in some of his most visually arresting works to date. The artist seamlessly melds Dali-esque psychedelia with the seductive pin-up imagery of the late, great Pop provocateur Mel Ramos, highlighting the playful fluidity and inherent absurdity of Pop culture with his signature dose of visual bombast and razor sharp wit.
The series showcases Romeo’s ingenious ability to fuse eclectic musical influences into his work. Evoking the heady compositions of prog rock and the free-form looseness of improvisational jazz, the paintings in the series ebb and flow like tracks in a concept record, connected through a series of visual motifs and cheeky double-entendres. A master of creating visual hooks, Romeo also grounds his work with eye-popping colour arrangements and taut, rhythmic text passages that recall the invigorating rush of punk and the bone-rattling beats of hip hop as they soundtrack disco’s twilight. Balancing the tight sheen of popular music with the intuitive impulses of jazz, the artist has crafted his most confident and accomplished paintings yet.
THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO is a powerful celebration of new dawns rising from the ashes of the old world. Bursting with sumptuous explosions of colour, searing satire and a delightfully Absurdist edge, the series sees Australia’s leading Pop artist take his inimitable fusion of punk energy and Kitsch Pop slickness to soaring new heights as he ushers in the incendiary last days of disco.
Opening reception with Artist: Friday 7th December 2018 @ 6:30-8:00pm
Harvey Galleries, 842 Military Road, Mosman, NSW 2088, Australia.
Ph: +61 2 9968 2153
RSVP to attend the opening of Johnny Romeo’s THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO is essential.
RSVP to: rsvp@harveygalleries.com.au
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO can be made directly through Harvey Galleries (admin@harveygalleries.com.au) or by calling the gallery on +61 2 9968 2153
Exhibition Dates: 7th December – 16th December 2018.
Johnny Romeo
NEW AMERICANA
New Paintings
The Australian Consulate-General, New York, in association with Anala Art Advisory, is proud to present NEW AMERICANA, the thrilling new series from internationally acclaimed Australian Pop artist Johnny Romeo. Exhibiting at the prestigious headquarters of the Australian Consulate-General in the heart of Manhattan, Australia’s King of Pop delivers a dazzling homage to classic American iconography that captures the larger-than-life spirit of America in brilliant Technicolour. To celebrate the major opening of the show, Pennsylvania-based craft-beer specialists Zeroday Brewing Company will be serving their one-of-a-kind Johnny Romeo IPA beer, alongside dynamic Ned Kelly prints created by the artist. NEW AMERICANA is an infectiously fun Kitsch Pop romp through American culture from the world-renowned culture jammer that fuses vibrant absurdist imagery with pithy cultural commentary to colourfully re-envision American icons in bold and surprising ways.
Americana has always beaten at the heart of Johnny Romeo’s distinctive Neo-Expressionist Pop visions. Growing up during the golden era of television, Romeo’s punchy Pop critiques reflect his life-long fascination with the glamour and melodrama of American Pop culture in all its forms. In NEW AMERICANA, the artist pushes his fascination with quintessential American iconography to exhilarating new heights, drawing heavily from the silver screen stars, larger-than-life sports heroes and brand name imagery of his childhood to create a highly frenetic snapshot of an America caught between its past and present. Romeo’s exuberant, neon-drenched approach to colour and slick graphic stylings imbues NEW AMERICANA with an undeniable Pop edge that puts a refreshingly contemporary twist on favourites such as Muhammad Ali and Marilyn Monroe.
Romeo gleefully drags the old into the new, using the imagery of classic Hollywood and the Pop sheen of mid-20th Century American advertising to examine the formulaic and cyclical nature of fame and celebrity. Each of the subjects chosen represent a recurring trope within American Pop culture, ranging from the inspirational fighter to the youthful rebel, the glamorous starlet to the fearless daredevil. By juxtaposing these archetypes with frenetic and anthemic word assemblages, Romeo plays around with language to deftly subvert our understandings of Pop culture. Delivered with rhythmic finesse, the artist plucks phrases from gangster patois, hip hop and rock’n’roll to create rich linguistic tapestries that demonstrate the power of words to distort and transform Pop symbols.
NEW AMERICANA sees Romeo at his most strident and rambunctious, using his signature razor sharp wit and penchant for absurdist imagery to craft a body of work that cleverly straddles the line between humour and melancholy. Carrying the torch of Pop provocateurs such as Mel Ramos and Jeff Koons, the artist masterfully uses satire and the juxtaposition of seemingly incongruous Pop elements to capture the glorious kitsch and over-the-top nature of American Pop culture. Johnny Romeo’s highly playful take on celebrity portraiture creates hilarious alternate realities within his paintings, where a US president is transformed into a swag rapper in a fresh Adidas tracksuit and a classical Hollywood glamour becomes a rough and tumble boxer.
Amidst the playful exuberance and sugarcoated Technicolour of NEW AMERICANA, there is a decidedly dark undercurrent to the series that speaks to the contemporary American experience. Romeo cleverly appropriates the icons of the past to provide punchy commentary on major issues facing the US today, covering everything from gun-violence and the #MeToo movement, to the influence of hip hop and the corporatisation of the entertainment industry. Veering from the comical to the political, the amusingly surreal to the all too real, the series powerfully subverts American icons to explore how Pop culture informs our identity and reflects the world in which we live.
As part of the opening night, dynamic Pennsylvanian brewers Zeroday Brewing Company will be serving their powerhouse Johnny Romeo IPA beer, which was specially brewed in collaboration with the artist. The limited edition brews feature bombastic designs of Ned Kelly by Romeo, which put a cheeky modern twist on the iconic Australian bushranger. Limited edition prints of the Ned Kelly designs will be featured at the launch of NEW AMERICANA, adding a delightfully antipodean spin on the artist’s homages to quintessential American icons. Renowned for their clean, balanced ales and lagers, Zeroday’s bold, zesty specialty Johnny Romeo IPA perfectly complements the crackling, colourful energy of Romeo’s inimitable Neo-Expressionist Pop.
NEW AMERICANA is an exhilarating slice of Technicolour-fuelled Kitsch Pop that showcases Australia’s leading Pop artist at the height of his powers. Johnny Romeo’s quirky attention-grabbing renditions of beloved American icons and brand names ingeniously flip nostalgia on its head, using cheeky double-entendres and surreal cultural mash-ups to transform the Pop culture of the past into the NEW AMERICANA.
Johnny Romeo | NEW AMERICANA | New Paintings | The Australia Consulate-General, New York, USA in association with Anala Art Advisory
Opening reception with Artist: Thursday 25th October 2018 | 6-8:30pm @ The Australia Consulate-General, Monash Room, Floor 34, 150 East 42nd Street, New York, USA.
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s NEW AMERICANA can be made directly through Anala Art Advisory (info@analaartadvisory.com.au) or by calling Michael Powe on +61 452 586 448
Exhibition Dates: 25th October – 14th December 2018
Johnny Romeo
GUNS‘N’POSES
Paintings
Internationally acclaimed Australian Pop painter Johnny Romeo makes his audacious Canberra debut with his exhilarating mini retrospective, GUNS’N’POSES. The survey, expertly curated by Aarwun Gallery, brings together iconic Romeo works from all over Australia and the world that have never been seen before in Canberra. Recalling the giddy excitement of an old-school mix tape, GUNS’N’POSES delivers an eclectic selection of visual gems that bring some of Johnny Romeo’s most incendiary paintings to Australian audiences for the first time and showcase him as one of the world’s leading culture jammers. The artist’s bombastic and unapologetically rambunctious Kitsch Pop works fuse off-beat humour, sly cultural references and surreal imagery to re-imagine Pop culture icons through his inimitable Neo-Expressionist Pop lens.
Working throughout the early 2000s and erupting on to the Australian commercial art scene in 2007, Johnny Romeo has become a veritable tour de force in the international art world that has dazzled audiences with his bombastic and delightfully quirky visions of Pop culture. GUNS’N’POSES offers audiences a brilliant insight into the evolution of Australia’s leading Pop artist, exhibiting iconic Romeo works that have been extensively sourced from local and international collections. Veering from the grungy, stream-of-consciousness graffiti punk of his earlier period to the neon-drenched Technicolour Pop slickness of his later work, the mini retrospective is a testament to Romeo’s masterful ability to constantly push Pop Art into thrilling new terrain.
Taking its title from a playful riff on the name of classic LA rockers GUNS’N’POSES, the survey captures Australia’s King of Pop at his most audacious. The irreverent nod to the iconic 80’s hard rock hell-raisers reflects the electric dynamism of Johnny Romeo’s paintings, which buzz with the glorious energy and irrepressible swagger of classic rock songs played at maximum volume. The artist’s signature blend of frenetic imagery, explosive Technicolour arrangements and boisterous word assemblages create dazzling Neo-Expressionist renditions of the modern world that explore our fascination with the gunners and posers of Pop culture – the trail-blazers, and those comfortable to ride on their coat tails.
As a world-renowned culture jammer, Johnny Romeo gleefully plunders the canon of Pop culture to unearth and reconfigure classic Pop iconography in refreshingly new, often surprising ways. The artist draws on a diverse spectrum of Pop culture that samples everything from comic book heroes and advertising, to notorious music stars and tragic celebrities. Playing with our sense of nostalgia, Romeo ingeniously uses the pulp fiction and cult imagery of the past to provide punchy social critiques that speak to our contemporary Pop experience.
Carrying the torch of Pop Art provocateurs like Jeff Koons and Mel Ramos, 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. Fragments of lyrics from street-hardened rap dons and rock’n’roll poets are melded to the catchy jargon of advertising in Romeo’s paintings, creating powerful textual hooks that allow the artist to inject new layers of meaning to indelible icons such as Frida Kahlo and Ned Kelly.
GUNS’N’POSES is a thrilling mini retrospective of visual gems old and new that draws deep from Johnny Romeo’s illustrious career as one of the world’s leading visual Pop auteurs. Bursting with neon-drenched Technicolour explosions, bold graphic imagery and mischievous wit, the series is a powerful statement of intent that provides a captivating glimpse into the mind of Australia’s King of Pop.
Opening reception with Artist: Saturday 8th September 2018 | 6-8pm @ Aarwun Gallery
Shop 11 Federation Square, O Hanlon Place, Nicholls, ACT +61 2 6230 2055
Any enquires regarding Johnny Romeo’s GUNS’N’POSES 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: 8th September – 22nd September 2018