“In Passing” (2020)

Solo show @ Bell Projects // Denver, CO

Artist Statement:

Once in a while, the way we exist reads more like a glitch or familiar fever dream. You’ve been here before and you’ll be here again. Romelle explains further, “I daydreamed my way into the walls of 1951, where I watched Jackson Pollock work largely without his fully pigmented spectrum. He threw furious amounts of black and white paint at the barn’s studio floor, where he told me to pay no mind to the bad years. Like he said, we’ve been here before and we’ll be here again.”

In this sense, Romelle wanted to challenge comfortable patterns and ideas and really sit with her own construction of painting. While her work is often grounded in color, she was curious about the ways the work can be removed from those constraints and descriptions. Moreover, she wanted to understand how the works can still resonate while also remaining absent of color. This, in essence, forces a more active role in looking and seeing beyond what is so frequently at surface level.

Similarly, the palette reflected in Romelle’s works is typically viewed all at once, rather than compartmentalized or seen as separate. In the ways that she has previously invited the elements of the works to be viewed simultaneously, with this new and unprecedented stylistic choice in this series, she wanted to suggest intentionality between layers. Each painting is a comparison across the spectrum, and depends on the viewer’s ability to not only see, but seek. This series acts as a continuous study, referencing histories as a means to synthesize the present.

The title of the show, In Passing, also makes reference to points in history, as well as daily actions and conditions. The sentiment, “we’ve been here before and we’ll be here again,” carries an air of things moving on — we reference the past to know how to deal with the present. Everything is layered and when taken as a whole it appears a certain way, but looks a lot different when looked at piece by piece, day by day, or even minute by minute. Formally, en passant (French for “in passing”) is also a capture move in chess, which again refers to the elemental grid patterns present in many of Romelle’s works in this series.

This is a lesson in active looking that invites you to see each element with intentionality, again and again. We pass through and also return. You’ve been here before, and you’ll be here again.