Born Under a Bad Sign
Acrylic on canvas, 36 × 24 inches, 2005
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GALLERY-WRAPPED CANVAS
MUSEUM FRAMED
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ABOUT THIS WORK
Barbara Romain, Born Under a Bad Sign, 2005. Acrylic on canvas, 36 × 24 in. © Estate of Barbara Romain.
2019 — PASSIONATE FOCUS, Second Sense (formerly the Catholic Guild for the Blind), Fairmont Hotel Chicago and the Illinois Eye Institute, Chicago, IL
2018 — CORE, Long Beach Arts Center, Long Beach, CA
2013 — ART BLIND, Kunst im Stapelhaus / Berufsverband Bildender Künstler (BBK), Cologne, Germany
2011 — INTERNATIONAL ACQUISITIONS, Viewpoint Gallery, Sunnyview Rehabilitation Center, Schenectady, NY (16 September – 14 October 2011)
2007 — CORE 3: DEFINING OURSELVES, 2nd City Council Gallery and Performance Space, Long Beach, CA. September–October 2007. CURATED BY BARBARA ROMAIN
2007 — NATIONAL ACQUISITIONS EXHIBIT, Viewpoint Gallery, Schenectady, NY
2005 — BAD EYE ON THE GOOD FOOT, solo exhibition, Art Around Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
COMING SOON
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
Barbara Romain (1948–2024)
Barbara Romain was an American painter, writer, performer, and creative provocateur whose work explored the intersection of music, memory, language, and perception. Based in Los Angeles and trained in Philadelphia, she developed a distinctive artistic practice she called "visual music," creating paintings that translated rhythm, emotion, and lived experience into vibrant fields of color, gesture, and text.
In 1984, Romain was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive degenerative eye disease that would eventually leave her legally blind. Rather than abandoning her artistic practice, she transformed the challenge into a new way of seeing. For the next four decades, she created paintings from what she could hear, remember, imagine, and feel, building a body of work that stands as one of the most compelling explorations of creativity beyond conventional vision.
Romain's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the de Young Museum, the Holter Museum of Art, the John F. Kennedy Center, and the ART BLIND exhibition in Cologne, Germany, among others. Her life and artistic process were featured in the award-winning 2013 documentary Can You See Me?, which brought international attention to her pioneering approach to painting.
