Last Sunday, during a trip to The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, I caught their special exhibit entitled The Scandalous Art of James Ensor. Ensor is known as "the painter of masks" and true to that designation, the exhibition focuses on a time in Ensor's career when he pivoted away from naturalistic painting and toward more creative and disturbing imagery. Ensor's "scandalous" work depicts society imagery - parties, religious processions, theater goers, and art studios - with a disturbing twist; the heads of the figures are replaced with skulls or faces are distorted into melting masks.

ReviewsSummer RomascoAugust 4, 2014review, getty, museum, james ensor, painter, skulls, masks Comments

Scan & Stitch

Documenting my artwork for over 15 years, I've come to the conclusion that photographing your own work is virtually impossible.

Something always goes wrong when taking photos of two-dimensional art. If the exposure is perfect the focus is off, if the focus is perfect the angle camera isn't perfectly aligned with the canvas. Tripods, remote shutter releases, and professional photo lamps help, but not enough. I went through a phase when I would haul my paintings outside onto the sidewalks of Brooklyn in order to use daytime shade, while all the pedestrians would stare and wonder what idiotic thing I was doing and why I was taking up their sidewalk space. I've even been through the harrowing experience of trying to remove glare in Photoshop - it just doesn't work.

City of Industry | Art of Industry

InspirationSummer RomascoJuly 7, 2014Summer Romasco Studioindustrial, industry, art, studio, screen printing, process, work in progress, oaklnadComment

Open Studios Wrap Up

StudioSummer RomascoJune 19, 2014Comment

GIFs from Open Studio Weekend 1

EventsSummer RomascoJune 11, 2014Comment

New Figurative Paintings

StudioSummer RomascoMay 28, 2014Comment

Open Studio Time

EventsSummer RomascoMay 26, 2014East Bay Open Studiosopen studio, oakland art, nate boxer, laurel cain, emily van engel, pauls szymanski, summer romasco, EBOSComment

Framing

Summer RomascoApril 22, 2014 Comment

New Painings @ 2014 East Bay Open Studios in Oakland, CA

I’ll be showing new work during the 2014 East Bay Open Studios in Oakland, CA. My plan is to only include new work from my latest series which are complex pieces combining multiple layers of painting and screenprinting. This is a new process for me and each piece is a challenge, so I’ll be working diligently over the next 2 months to get enough pieces done by June!