About the Artist

RACHEL ROMANO  
Pennsylvania, USA
1958

STATEMENT

My work explores the boundaries between memory, and identity. Through painting and drawing, I investigate how personal histories are preserved, distorted, and reinvented. I depict love, humor, sorrow, resilience and the absurdity of life. Each canvas is a dreamlike psychological landscape, where the past, present, and unknown coexist.

All art influences me, and my process is derived from classical techniques. My paintings are made up of many layers, textures and vivid color, mimicking the complexities of human nature by weaving personal and collective myths, and histories. I create a visual tension inviting one to question their own relationship with nostalgia, and the fleeting nature of experienced moments. Ultimately, my art is a painted archive of humanity, capturing the quiet, emotional currents that shape who we are. By making the intangible tangible, I create a space for reflection, vulnerability, and deep introspection.  

BIO
Rachel Romano’s connection to art began at age 7 with sojourns to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with her father, a poet.  Their adventures throughout NYC planted the seeds of storytelling. 

Expecting to go to art school for children's illustration, Rachel’s brief encounter was cut short by family circumstances.  In 1996, at the age 38, she attended the Lyme Academy of Fine Art, for one year.  R wanted to be selfish about her art, and selfish about raising her 2 year old son, but both couldn’t happen, so motherhood became the focus.  However, that year of art school gave her a foundation to where she is today.

In 2014 after many years of diverse careers in advertising, architecture, and landscape design, she immersed herself in workshops with Tim Hawkesworth.  These sessions were about self discovery, and connecting with her personal voice and vision.  The workshops broke her wide open.  Rachel discovered she wasn't a storyteller for children, but a storyteller for adults. In 2015 she opened her studio, putting fear aside, not a fear of painting, but a fear of discovering who she was.  Rachel let go of what she should or shouldn't do as an artist, and began expressing the myths and experiences of humanity.

She has been featured in publications, blogs and interviews, including Create Magazine International Women's Issue #56; Arts To Heart HomeStudio Issue and Interview; Women’s United; Art Seen; CREATE Quarterly; re-FOCUS;Painters Tubes (Uk/Sweden); In-The-Net-EU (Italian/English); The Jealous Curator; Beautiful Bizarre Artist Guide; Margaret Winslow, Head Curator Delaware Art Museum (radio interview).

Rachel's sketchbook and working drawings are in the permanent collection of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. A collection that dates back to 1760; which incudes Violet Oakley, and Judith Schaechter. She was recently awarded the John R. Maxwell Painting Prize at the Woodmere Art Museum. 

She has been awarded residences in France, Italy and USA , collected worldwide.