Confronting Orange | 1997
Barbara Romain
Estate-Authorized
Gallery Wrapped Canvas
Confronting Orange is an exploration. Originally 24 × 30 inches, acrylic on canvas, painted in 1997. It is a still life turned up to full volume: with complementaries pitched to vibrate. Romain believed color was emotional before it was descriptive — “it’s not just about thinking; it’s more about feeling” — and here she stages the encounter with a single color as something almost combative. It doesn’t decorate a room. It changes the temperature.
Confronting Orange — Gallery Wrapped Canvas
Barbara Romain (1949–2024) was a Philadelphia-trained, Los Angeles–based painter whose work has been exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the de Young Museum, and the John F. Kennedy Center, among others. Diagnosed with a degenerative retinal disease in 1984, she spent four decades pioneering a celebrated body of work she called "visual music"—building paintings from what she could hear, remember, and imagine rather than what she could see. Working with braille-labeled paints, hand-cut stencils, and brilliant color, she turned the loss of sight into a new way of seeing. These prints are released under authorization of the Estate of Barbara Romain.
