Romeo di Girolamo PRBA

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Megan di Girolamo RBA & Selina di Girolamo RBA

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5 Blenheim Crescent Gallery
Notting Hill London W11 2EE

Selina di Girolamo - Letting Go at Hope Gap

Romeo di Girolamo PRBA has done sterling work in recent years in both advancing the cause of the Royal Society of British Artists in his role as President and establishing the society’s laudable education policy.

From April 14-20, West-Eleven stages a spectacular display of new paintings and sculptures by Romeo, his wife, Megan and daughter, Selina at: No 5 Blenheim Crescent in Notting Hill.

Both Megan and Selina are also RBAs in their own right. Megan is known for her unique figurative sculpture, often based on mother and  child symbiosis, while Selina’s rich and textured abstract landscapes derive from a strong affinity to nature and a spirituality for which she has a strong following.

From very early childhood Romeo’s paintings were a powerful presence in the family home. “I remember large soft suns, blue cliffs separated by just a breath from strips of the sky and a vast expanse of sea,” says Selina. “These works seemed to exude openness and gentle light. They hung in contrast alongside the paintings of the 1950s and 60s. Alienating in mood, the viewer catches a glimpse of vicious green rain-swollen clouds through indigo barbed wire. There are always barriers in these paintings - a railing too high to climb, creating geometric patterns of shadow that frame the smoke-belching chimneys beyond. Often vermilion signs scream “Keep out”, “Danger”, “No Entry”. Though foreboding, the technical skill is astounding.”

In these works, Romeo manipulates colour and tone so that purple behaves like black or white, pulling and pushing the picture plane into a semblance of illusionary space with an economy of palette and mark making. He is perhaps best down today for his superbly atmospheric Venetian scenes, but in truth he is a master of many different styles of painting which are bound only by the dreamy quality they are imbued with.

Romeo began exhibiting at the RBA at the tender age of 17 and was elected to full membership when he was 23. By the age of 19 he had made his debut at the Royal Academy where in the early sixties his large industrial landscapes brought him international acclaim. Romeo’s artistic achievements have seen him knighted in his native Italy, where in 1978 the Italian government conferred on him the title Cavaliere OMRI. He has served as President of the RBA for 10 years and has received numerous prizes and awards for his painting, including The De Laszlo Medal for Art, The Italia Award and The Coley and Tilley Art Prize.

Megan has also achieved many awards for her sculpture including The De Laszlo Medal, The RBS Silver Medal, The Potclays Award and The UBS Award. She was elected to the RBA in 1994 and to The Society of Portrait Sculptors in 2000. She was invited to become a member of The Royal British Society of Sculptors in 2002 and has completed many corporate commissions, including The Vatican and The Royal Mint. She is currently Artist in Residence at Astor College for the Arts in Dover.

Selina’s recent body of work includes fabulously coloured and layered canvases in which her shamanic relationship with the East Sussex landscape is unveiled. Also an award-winning artist, Selina is an elected member of the RBA and former Chair of the Education Committee at The Federation of British Artists.

“I looked at paintings from the cradle,” she says, “and that has given me a confidence that allows me to take risks in my work, to explore my edges and to transgress so that something bigger than me can come through. Art was not compulsory at home, it was my voca-tion. I often say that I chose the right parents! I have inherited a great deal from my parents - a love of colour and pattern from my mother and a commitment to dynamic composition and evocative mark-making from my father.”

Megan di Girolamo - Study for Madonna and Child

Romeo di Girolamo PRBA
Megan di Girolamo RBA & Selina di Girolamo RBA

April 14 to 20 2008 Daily 11am to 10pm
Private View: April 15 6pm to 10pm

5 Blenheim Crescent Notting Hill W11 2EE
Tel: 020 8998 7923 / 07795 074843