It was at the end of the 19th century when Ferdinand de Saussure outlined first the possibility of a science that studies life of signs in a social context: on the basis of semiotics, he assumed that sign is constituted by the relationship between signifier – that is the image that carries the meaning – and signified – the concept, the meaning that is carried by the image. Now we are in 2015, more than one hundred years after De Saussure’s theory: could the sign be seen the same yet – an idea under veils that has to be discovered? Or does it take a deeper connotation rooted in feelings and sensations?
Domenico Romeo may be the elected one to take us by hand and lead our conscious to hidden paths of the world of signs. Born in 1988 in Reggio Calabria, when he was 18 he moved to Rome in order to study law, but interest in art and illustration triumphed: he started taking classes of graphic design and developed his passion for visuals and lettering. In 2013 he inaugurated his first personal exhibition in Rome and now he lives and works in Milan.
His personal way of seeing art is based on the need of talking to himself and express his realities from inside. The letters he puts one after the other create long and mysterious sentences and draw sinuous silhouettes shaped in objects or animals that gravitate towards geometrical patterns with a peacemaker inner logic. As Domenico said, in a strange wordplay it seems like “his streets has taken him back to the street”: by choosing this particular artistic path he leaves the studio and gets lost in the underground world of the city, where the urban landscape gives him tools of research and study of signs representation in every possible variation. Romeo’s purpose is to interpret external vibes and, through the automatism of the sign, express his inner I, describing it in a really unique and brilliant way on different materials, that could be canvas, clothes and walls.
On the traces of an ancient amanuensis, it’s difficult and reductive to pigeonhole him in a definite category: more than an illustrator, more than a painter, more than a designer. Domenico Romeo materializes dreams and fears by letting the signs being the bones of the soul structure: we all should follow his stream of consciousness and take part in the cult of signs.
Article by Marina Lepori
Find more on Domenico Romeo here: TUMBLR | INSTAGRAM
