Night and Day Painting

Contemporary American-Swedish artist John Romi is the founder of Cuneiformism, a unique style he has been working to hone since 2004. Initially creating figurative canvases, Romi has transitioned to abstract imagery and incorporates calligraphy and logo-syllabic script into his work. Romi has a unique way of grouping contrasting organic shapes and reinforcing the focal point by employing different textures and a palette knife. This gives his works an unusually vibrant color depth and dimension. In addition to focusing on the variety of texture, colors and geometric composition, Romi places great emphasis on how much energy and attraction his canvases produce. Shortly after completing his Master of Science in Engineering, Computer Science, Graphic Arts and Multimedia from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, Romi began experimenting with the use of Cuneiform within his art. Alongside some of the foremost scholars in the field, Romi has extensively studied the ancient Mesopotamian script Cuneiform and utilizes correct definitions to spell out words and concepts across his canvases. Romi layers the wedge-shaped Cuneiform characters against a background of pure and bold hues hoping that the beauty and peace of his canvases will allow viewers to escape critical conflict and heal inner wounds. Romi believes in the positive effect of his Cuneiformism canvases. Every artwork is carefully composed to convey a unified theme or perception that underpins the spectacle while allowing the viewers to create their own narrative as they see the artwork. What makes John’s work unique is that he relies on implementing his new works by using the canvas surface to jump from the standard two dimensions to the 3D using multilayers, mixed media, hot and cold colors, and optical illusions to come up with a mixture of the clear and ambiguous outcome, yet quite appealing and attractive view. Giving both the Cuneiform and the Aramaic writing systems a touch of life that mediate or compromises the construction of the painting between reality and imagination leads to a new horizon that no artist has set foot on before!