BARBARA ROMAIN

Romain paints herself head-on, against a flat ground that is not empty but written on. Stencilled capitals crowd in from every edge and run down the side in a column: ESTRADIOL, CLAIROL, CALCIUM, CETAPHIL, FLAX SEED, LUTEIN, REGENIX, YOGA, CHIROPRACTIC. It is the vocabulary of maintaining a middle-aged body, set down in the same stencilled language she used for songs and street signs and fortune cookies. The title does the rest of the work. Here the text painting is turned on the painter.