BARBARA ROMAIN
BARBARA ROMAIN · 2003
Children of the Revolution
Oil on canvas, 24 × 36 inches
ABOUT THIS WORK
Children of the Revolution (2003) captures a refusal to accept easy answers, inherited assumptions, or the limits imposed by others. Painted more than three decades after her diagnosis with retinitis pigmentosa and well into her career as a legally blind artist, the work unfolds like a wall written on, painted over, and reclaimed. Fragments of song lyrics and refusals collide across the surface: "bump and grind, it's good for your mind," "twist and shout," "let it all hang out." Rising through the noise in blazing yellow capitals is the word that anchors the composition: REVOLUTION.
The painting takes its title from Marc Bolan and T. Rex's 1972 anthem, but Romain transforms the song into something larger than tribute. Words repeat, fracture, and reemerge; the word "NO" multiplies across the surface like a crowd unwilling to disperse. Layers of color push against layers of language, creating a visual field charged with resistance, humor, and resilience. Echoes of Basquiat's textual energy and Twombly's mark-making may be felt within the work, but it ultimately belongs to a vocabulary entirely Romain's own. The children of the revolution were never going to be fooled.
AVAILABLE FORMATS
ESTATE EDITIONS
GALLERY-WRAPPED CANVAS
MUSEUM FRAMED
GALLERY-MOUNTED ACRYLIC
ALSO AVAILABLE
Apparel and gifts featuring this work — tees, mugs, totes, phone cases, and more →
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Barbara Romain (1949–2024)
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.
