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 Talented self-taught artist Elizabeth Romhild’s creative training has developed in parallel with her firsthand worldly experiences of the differing cultures and localities she has been immersed within throughout her life.
Born in Denmark in 1960 to an Iranian Armenian father and Danish mother, from an early age Elizabeth found it natural to draw from differing cultural influences. Spending her childhood in Iran, with her adult years spent in Saudi Arabia, America, Indonesia, and nearly the last two decades in her adoptive home of Thailand, Elizabeth’s unique heritage and worldly experiences instil her creativity with distinct individuality.
It was in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta at the age of 26 when Elizabeth considers herself born as an artist. From the outset it has been her vibrant use of colour that has drawn her much praise. For the artist, it is something that calls to her, no matter how hard she tries to mute her palette, colour pervades her imagination. She muses that her strong palette could be a reflection of her exuberant personality, contrasting cool north European hues with hotter Middle Eastern colours.
Gradually Elizabeth’s art became bolder and more simplified in her portrayals of the female form. Delivered in numerous guises, her female imagery bent and flowed as she edged towards a more primitive style, depicting her subjects with more totemic faces. Initially her stylised studies of women capitalised upon associations typical to the exotic perceptions of eastern art.
Reinterpreting and blurring modern European art genres with Oriental mystique, Elizabeth’s art increasingly displayed an amalgam of Western and Eastern artistic traditions. Evoking worldly Post-Impressionist painters like Gaugin and Matisse, as well as the deep hues and rich mosaics of Islamic art, Elizabeth detailed the flamboyant dalliances of society’s elite, where the heady world of inebriated flirtation and lust are under ridden by sexual manipulation and illicit liaisons.
Bursting with tongue in cheek innuendo and subtle allegory, her paintings paid exquisite attention to detail through a poetically lyrical blend of classicism and modernism, operatic costuming and theatrical staging. Through melodic, rhythmic structuring and a delicate instinctive application, Elizabeth teasingly expresses the independence and susceptibility of feminine sensuality, sensibility, potency and sexual politicking.
Always searching for fresh artistic directions, Elizabeth recently embarked upon an investigative journey into to the expansive wild savannahs of Africa. During her explorations, she was profoundly affected by the primordial majesty of both the bestial inhabitants and the nomadic tribe’s folk.
Darker, raw, and more introspective, Elizabeth’s recent Africa aligned compositions are less contrived and more immediate in their delivery. More expressive in nature, her most recent undertakings imbue loose, fluid brushwork, through a coarser application that exudes a primitive atmosphere while also displaying a very contemporary countenance.
Employing a more restrained palette, Elizabeth’s subjects, whether human or animal, share the same emotional earnestness. With Africa considered the cradle of civilisation, Elizabeth treats her characters with humility, exacting an archaic sense of their proud lineage.
Perhaps it’s the sculptural veneer of her most recent paintings that have driven Elizabeth to expand her artistic sensibility and create her first three-dimensional works. Further enhancing the sense of physicality and earthiness of her African imagery, her haunting sculptural manifestations of be tial skulls and horns remind viewers of the harsh cyclical nature of survival and to our own fragile mortality.
Steven Pettifor
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