Wisconsin painter gets his largest exhibition at MOWA

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Sept. 30, 2017

Wisconsin painter gets his largest exhibition at MOWA

Romano Johnson’s ‘Glitterati’ and others to be celebrated Oct. 7

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

ndettmann@conleynet.com 262-306-5043

The work of Romano Johnson is hard to miss.

The colors. The glitter. They each crave a passerby’s attention.

Since Aug. 26, the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend has showcased Johnson’s work for the largest display of the up-and-coming artist’s career.

The 19-piece exhibition is appropriately named “The Glitterati.”

“I think the objective of any painter is to get to the point where if somebody sees one of your paintings, they know who it is,” said Graeme Reid, MOWA’s director of collections and exhibitions. “That’s absolutely the case with Romano. He’s developed a very unique, very distinctive style that is not going to get confused with anyone else.”

Reid said there are two factors that make Johnson’s work exclusive: the colors and the unconventional use of glitter.

“Part of MOWA’s philosophy and mission is to highlight the talented work of up-andcoming Wisconsin artists,” said Laurie Winters, MOWA’s executive director and CEO, in a news release. “Johnson’s paintings are complex in detail and in subject matter. His work and his story are inspirational.”

Johnson’s work is hanging in the state gallery hallway at MOWA, which faces the long line of windows facing the west. And that was done on purpose, Reid said.

With the glitter and powerful colors, when it’s sunny outside, the artwork illuminates the hallway.

Johnson’s exhibition will be celebrated with a party Oct. 7 at MOWA. The party will also serve as an opening party for two additional exhibitions — Gerit Grimm’s “Fairytales: In A Time Neither Now Nor Then” and Dean Meeker’s “Myths and Masquerades.”

Johnson’s journey to this point in his career is almost a rags-to-riches story.

Johnson is developmentally disabled. As a youngster, he had an unstable home with the family living near the poverty line on the north side of Chicago.

When he was 13, he moved to Madison to be with his sister, then later moved to a shelter with his mother and other siblings.

“The back story of him is irresistible,” Reid said. “Growing up on the north side of Chicago, one point basically homeless.”

Johnson also had no role models growing up as far as artists. Thus, he was selftaught, which Reid said makes his ascension in the art circle an extraordinary achievement.

“He always enjoyed drawing,” Reid said. “There was a teacher in middle school that expressed some appreciation for his work. For him that was a huge validation because I’m sure with his learning disability, I suspect his other classwork was a challenge. All of a sudden he does a drawing and the teacher says this is really good, this is really good.

“I think for the validation from the teacher, he takes off from there.”

Today in his late 30s, Johnson has quickly received high praise of his work, which includes mostly of political figures, social icons and celebrities.

He caught the attention of former President Barack Obama.

When Obama was president, Johnson sent a picture of his work of Obama. The president hand-wrote a note back saying great job and keep it up.

Johnson was also selected for the 2016 Wisconsin Triennial, an art festival that is by invitation-only.

“For Romano to be invited as the first self-taught artist to the Triennial was a major accomplishment, a major validation,” Reid said.

Johnson is now featured in museums throughout the country, including the art gallery hotbed of New York, and is represented by the Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee. He works out of his Madisonbased studio at Artworking, a nonprofit organization that provides career-oriented support for artists with developmental disabilities.

Not having the art background or formal education most artists have may have been to Johnson’s advantage as he worked and found his niche.

“He’s kind of not really aware of the rich story of art history,” Reid said. “So this is a real

sincere purity of his work that I like.”

Johnson has also garnered respect from colleagues.

“Painters really like Romano’s work,” Reid said. “Painters who’ve had all the training, have their (bachelor of fine arts degrees) and their (masters of fine arts degrees), painters really respond to his work.”

The concept sounds a bit childish, paint and glitter. But Reid believes the extravagance Johnson works with is not childish, not the slightest. Johnson doesn’t leave a lot of blank space on a canvas, if any. And that canvas is not small either.

Johnson works only on a large scale and that certainly helps him stand out above the crowd. And that flamboyancy also appears on him. Reid said Johnson often paints his clothes, taking blank shirts and painting on them. He also shaves shapes into his short hair.

“He’s pretty jazzy,” Reid said He added, “One of these days he’s going to become the hot thing. He’s going to take off, he’s going to become national.”

Thus, Reid said it was time for MOWA to introduce Johnson to a bigger audience.

“He’s never had this size of an exhibition before,” he said.

In Johnson’s other exhibitions, the most he had showcased was six pieces. Otherwise, most of them are two or three pieces.

“I think there’s a deep spirituality to his work,” Reid said, adding this will be a benchmark moment in Johnson’s career.