The New York Optimist September 2008
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While the world around them darkens, the young women in Juliana Romano’s paintings remain in a
state of absorption and reverie. Beams of luscious yellow and crimson light invade the backgrounds.
The light may meet the girl’s hair revealing her golden locks and hollow eyes. The intimate scale of
the paintings establishes a deeply personal atmosphere that intensifies the subject’s captive desire and
melancholy. Since they often come indirectly from the media, many of their qualities are drawn from
a somewhat collective American unconscious. Each figure represents ideal beauty, but Romano’s
divergent palette and choppy brushstrokes suggest conflict that is beyond repair.