Fears and False Aspirations

Muka Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 1999

Giuseppe Romeo’s latest exhibition features works, which physically as well as metaphorically operate as mirrors.  But though he holds his mirrors up to his audience he refuses to grant them the expected full reflection.
If we are to see ourselves in these mirrors we will have to look through, not in them.

Humans have an unequalled fascination with mirrors, the opportunity to check one’s reflection is rarely missed.  If our external projection is cause for obsession and insecurity our internal being is all the more so.
The “mirrors” we look to for reassurance in the latter case may be religion, institutions, the Sunday morning horoscope, or perhaps, art.  “Is my soul in place?”
Romeo bounces back an image of the physical-spiritual mirror whether it be through a covering of soot or, more subtly through appropriation and subversion of familiar symbols…