Through his monochromatic drawings, spare woodcut prints and figurative sculptures, Windsor, Ontario-based artist Victor Romao investigates issues of identity in distinctive ways. His practice includes bizarre likenesses of human and animal hybrids, chronicles of the deeds of anonymous, shadowy malefactors, and images of bucolic settings permeated with disturbing feelings of the surreal, uncanny, and ferocious. The artist’s influences are varied, ranging from the clean inventiveness of Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, elements of baroque European sculptural and religious conventions, and Romao’s impressions of youth in rural Southwestern Ontario.
His austerely beautiful works permit as many interpretations as there are motivations behind them. Numerous images point to behaviour considered ‘masculine’ run wild. They also explore senses of belonging to a group, and the experience of those considered outsiders, which include conflicting senses of identity faced by new Canadians, and the profiles imposed on them from without.
Romao’s practice includes drawing, sculpture, performance and print media. He holds a BFA and MFA from the University of Windsor. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions across Canada, the U.S. and in Japan and New Zealand.