Bio
Peer into Jonathon Romain's paintings and you'll feel the shifty movement that pulsates in his art. Stumble onto 1478 N. Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park, an eclectic neighborhood on Chicago's North Side, and you stumble onto the 'Mecca' of the artist's creativity--Gallery Romain. The 4000 square foot facility is the latest in a string of sites that date back to a small 500 square foot studio in Peoria.
Romain has had to meander his way through the complex world of art-dealing. He started by selling his art to several galleries and eventually obtained employment at one. His experience with the gallery's owner provided the artist with the confidence to start a gallery of his own. Upon the acquisition of his own showroom, Romain's eye shifted from strictly art, to the business of art. He quickly established himself as one of the city's premier businessmen, garnering a New Business of the Year Award in 1997.
Jump several gaping years following the 1997 award and the events between form a panorama of commissions, awards, newspaper articles, national television appearances, and the event that Romain believes to be the pinnacle of his career thus far. In 2002, the National Black Prosecutors' Association commissioned the artist to compose a work of art that would symbolize its mission. In addition to presenting his commissioned piece, Romain presented Bill Clinton, the keynote speaker at the painting's unveiling, with an original oil portrait of the President soulfully blowing his trademark saxophone.
"While in high school Igot a letter, from a guy named 'Bud', that changed my life," says Romain. John 'Bud' Allen wrote presciently in 1982, "1 write this as a blue collar worker who enjoys pictures." Admiration and praise for the young artist's work preceded Bud Allens request to be included on Romain's mailing list and invited to his first private showing. Allen's significance in Romain's development is ironic, for he is the very subject, the model, the imaginative well from which the artisan draws. And there are thousands more, throngs of acolytes-black and white-who are touched by the authenticity of the Chicago artist's vision, his blessed life, his godsend. Children playing in a water hydrant; a grandmother retired on a porch; a jazzman with trumpet grasped tightly in his hands, poised to sound off; a moping boy in overalls brilliantly suspended, thrust onto the viewer by the propulsion of a stark white background; A portrait of Romain himself, walking to paint perhaps, to further blemish the line between subject and artist, life and art, black and white, to paint our universal story. So the 'Buds' come and buy, in part persuaded by the businessman's appealing lingo, by Romain's weathered street salesman's way with words, but in larger part, sold by the 'Bud' effect-the interesting way in which they see themselves on canvas, their struggle illumined, brightened, enlivened, made beautiful.
Upcoming Exhibitions
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Speaking Engagements
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