Overview
Paola Romano (born 17 September 1951 in Monterotondo, near Rome) is an Italian artist who works in both painting and sculpture. Her career has been primarily based in Rome where she trained and developed a practice that moves between two and three dimensions. Romano's work has entered national and international exhibition programmes and has attracted attention for its material variety and contemplative approach.
Education and early development
Romano studied in Rome and attended courses at the Rome University of Fine Arts (RUFA), receiving formal training that combined traditional techniques with contemporary concerns. Her education in the city’s artistic environment exposed her to a range of approaches in painting and sculpture and provided access to the networks that support exhibitions and public projects.
Artistic practice and themes
Romano's practice spans oil and mixed-media painting as well as carved or modelled sculpture. She is known for exploring relationships between surface and volume, color and texture. Recurring concerns in her work include memory, natural forms, the interplay of light and shadow, and the translation of pictorial ideas into physical objects. Her process frequently emphasizes material presence—an interest that links her painted surfaces to three-dimensional works.
Exhibitions and recognition
Romano has participated in group and solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad. A notable public appearance was her participation in the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, one of the major international showcases for contemporary art. Beyond biennial participation, her work has been shown in galleries, municipal exhibitions and thematic surveys of contemporary Italian art.
Collections and reception
Her works are found in private and institutional collections and have been cited in critical reviews that note the subtle interplay between painterly gesture and sculptural form. Critics and curators have described her oeuvre as reflective and materially focused, attentive to how physical presence conveys meaning beyond representation.
Distinctive aspects
- Mediums: painting, mixed media, sculpture.
- Themes: memory, nature, light, surface and volume.
- Context: active within Rome’s contemporary art scene, with international exhibition experience.
Romano's career illustrates the continued exchange between painting and sculpture in contemporary Italian practice: a movement in which artists translate painterly concerns into three-dimensional form and vice versa.