 
ROMI
CORTIER, a self taught fourth generation artist, watched his
mother and grandmother work on paintings at the kitchen table,
while growing up in the Pacific Northwest. He dabbled in sketching
and acrylic painting in high school, but didn’t discover
his true voice as an artist until he moved to Los Angeles in
1993.
Romi’s first
oil paintings were architectural in nature, inspired by the
wet streets of Hollywood as seen from his first Los Angeles
home, a tiny one room sublet. Further architectural inspiration
came from the stucco clad homes in the hills
above Laguna Beach, where he spent
his first summer
weekends in
southern California. However, it was ultimately the
interesting characters in Hollywood that would captivate his
attention and turn him towards portraiture.
As
an artist taking acting classes, Romi became aware of the subtle
nuances that created a character. It’s something in the
eyes, an expression, a special moment caught in time, that says
it all, regardless of the setting, explains Cortier. Starting
with photographs, Romi lets his intuition guide him in interpreting
his subjects. Some compositions are complex, while others are
paired down and simple. Only after the painting is complete,
is he able to describe in words, what came through him. Frequently
his vision is clarified even further from the words of the viewer,
as they react to his interpretation of the subject.
|
