Max Romain 

Max Romain Born 1930 (Haiti) The self-taught artist living in New York City and Costa Rica began painting late in life after coming to New York City as a young man from Haiti. His art is infused with the colors of the Caribbean and life he witnessed in Haiti, as well as the multicultural influences in New York City. Symbols and rituals of Voudoun belief permeate many of his paintings as he was initiated at a young age. Max Romain talks about immersion in his painting as in a trance and having imagery flow from his deeper imagination. Early pictures were on paper and later were painted on found poster board and panels.

His paintings often depict multiple realities and figures freely associated and intertwined. There are elements of ritual, pageantry, and sexuality combined with nature and spirituality. He often includes elements of voodoo culture. “Voodoo is strong in New York,” he declares. He creates his drawings with trancelike concentration. “I don’t know what they are about (the drawings), I just take the pencil and work,” he states. There is a well-documented history of primitive painting in Haiti, but Romain’s art is very different from the traditional Haitian paintings—he combines his own unique outlook with a touch of New York and a touch of island life.

Max Romain was first exhibited at the Donnell Branch of the New York City Public Library on Fifty-third Street in 1991. He was also featured in and illustrated in the catalog for the exhibition “Made in USA,” Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland (1993), and in the Noyes Museum show, “Twentieth Century Self-Taught Artists from the Mid-Atlantic Region,” Oceanville, New Jersey (1994). The artist’s work is in important public collections such as the Collection de l’Art Brut de Lausanne (Switzerland) or the New York American Folk Art Museum.