Today we’d like to introduce you to Juliet Romeo DiIenno.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My art career almost didn’t happen. I am a triplet, and we all had an interest in the arts. By the time we were in college, all of us had attended quite a few art and music classes. My identical twin sister was earning her BFA in photography, and my fraternal brother was deep in his Musical Theater BFA. Somehow I thought I didn’t think I had anything artistically special or valuable to offer.
For a long time, I avoided photographic art. In fact, I never took a photography class in school. As an identical twin, people wrongly assume you both are the same, with the same interests and goals. I felt a need to prove my uniqueness so much that I focused my attention on making artwork differently than my sister. However, it was around this time that Natalie and I began occasionally collaborating on art projects. I loved studying social theories and culture studies and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology with a minor in Fine Art. My materials started two-dimensional, using mostly charcoal, pencils and paint. I most commonly drew figures or faces in empty rooms and painted scenes referential to memories of my childhood, filled with images of the oceans and sunsets.
Towards the end of my undergraduate studies, I expanded my media and began experimenting with sculpture and woodworking, exploring more abstract and non-figurative art. While working an internship at Children and Family services, I had an epiphany. I knew that a career in social services wasn’t for me. I realized that I had relevant, meaningful thoughts to offer and conversations to incite through my art and that I could apply my education in cultural and social theory in my practice. I visualized my future-self as a professionally practicing artist. I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything. So, I set my goals and got to work. I devoted myself to this renewed passion for art and ambition to make art a career and applied to the University of Central Florida Masters in Fine Art program. They accepted me. Everything changed in a whirlwind. My first projects were loud, employing shock to get the viewer’s attention and discussing my perspectives on things like gender norms and cultural standards among demographics. I made large-scale sculptures analyzing what it is to ‘be female’, paintings that explored the body and censorship, and installation pieces examining the mental and the emotional body.
My background in social theory was evident in my discussions of power dynamics, the male gaze, and psychology. I explored what it is to be and feel human, drawing from my own personal history with my family, assault, religion, and presentation of self. I was fascinated with the dichotomy between the primal brain and spiritual body coexisting simultaneously. Since I had been collaborating in creating art with my sister, who often photographed us together, I was accustomed to using my body as a tool for exploration, communication, and production of artwork. I embraced this methodology of creation, and my artwork almost exclusively came from or included my physical body in work. My body had felt like a center of debate my entire life, and using it in artmaking was liberating and led to discussions of sexual assault, responsibility, guilt, and transcendence. Before I knew it, I was passionately performing my thoughts and stories wherever I could – from art galleries to the streets of Orlando. And, I loved it. After reviewing documentative photographs from a performance, I found that the images lacked the authentic weight of emotions or energy; they fell flat. This resulted in a monumental change in how I staged my everything. Drawing from my love for sculpture and installation art, I began building scenes so photographs translated genuine emotional states and stories, just as my audience would see during my live performances.
One day, during a studio visit, someone told me they loved the storytelling elements in my photography. That was my aha moment: I was successfully creating photographic images. I was smitten, constantly devoting my time to photographing someone or myself. Photography became a free form of expression, a safe place. My imagery became more ethereal and surreal, conceptually dense with symbolic references to catholicism, perception, beauty, sexuality, spirituality, freedom, and one’s the higher self. Then in 2017, my father died suddenly. Everything changed. I processed the time passing and grieved through my photographic practice. My commentary became more personal as my experiences overwhelmed me with thoughts of life and death, things familiar and foreign. I threw myself deep into my art, and a few months later, I had an incredible exhibition for my MFA thesis. I am now a changed person. My artwork can be used as a platform to enable or arouse an effective mental or physical discussion around subject matter that is paramount to consider. I devote myself to art making and notice an intense mental and emotional void when I go long periods of time without producing artwork. I find consolation in creating art which has become an avenue to have exploration and conversation with myself and my viewers that I know are meaningful.
With COVID-19 sweeping across the world now, we are situated in an unfortunate contemporary era, and everything has changed (for many of us). With the loss of my full-time work, I refocused my attention to producing, publishing, and exhibiting my photographs. Since then, I have produced an entirely new body of work focusing on isolation and identification with my divine self. My work has been published three times and has been shown in three art exhibitions. Also, for the first time since childhood, my identical twin lives locally and we often produce art together, bringing our unique backgrounds in photography and combining our efforts to create beautiful, thought-provoking images. As time passes, I devote my time and thoughts to become the best photographer I can be, centering my unique practice on technique with lighting, gear and retouching. My concepts still orbit the human experience and psyche on an individual and social level. I have visions everywhere I go, constantly developing photoshoots in my mind. These imaginations are implemented in my portraiture, fine art, and editorial fashion images. I love working with people. The energy inspires me. Although the future is uncertain, I am inspired to continue creating and using photography as a tool to learn and communicate. My art career almost didn’t happen. But I am glad that it did.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I have had to face and overcome quite a few challenges over time. One of my largest challenges was a personal battle with insecurities as I attempted to follow the unrealistic standards I was taught growing up. I felt overwhelmed with guilt when I stepped out of line, judged by the standards ingrained in my upbringing, and taking responsibility for traumas that I was certainly not responsible for. For a long time, that fear kept me from truly diving into the concepts that I felt strongly about, and I stuck with making art that was aesthetically pleasing and less emotionally raw. Although I have liberated myself from much of that fear and I publicly work through these insecurities in my photography, feelings of guilt and fear still grab hold from time to time. That being said, I know from the bottom of my heart that I can never stop making art. I know I can keep honing my craft, learn how to shape light, use color, and dive deep into mental and emotional analysis. Currently, my life is completely changing again as my sister has moved locally and my ill mother is making moves to also move down here. Building a new future in the time of COVID-19 is nearly impossible, but I refocused my attention during this era to producing, publishing, and exhibiting my photographs.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I specialize in portraiture, editorial fashion and fine art photography. I love creating myths in my work, combining symbols from history like goddess figures, halos, and other archetypes with concepts of contemporary times, offering my perspective and commentary on self-understanding, traditional expectations, gender roles, politics, and my acceptance of the inherent and expressed female sexuality without judgment. My less-than-traditional journey to photography offers a different perspective, one considered from a sociological and personal level, built more through personal experience than simply an academic one. This form of creating offers insight to my own thought process as I encourage the viewer to question their own perceptions and ways of thinking. My style continues to develop as I explore my love for light and color, using both as tools for communicating emotions and mental landscapes.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I used to say that I was ‘lucky’ to end up here, but I’m not sure how much I can credit luck for that. Yes, I am lucky to be born a triplet with an identical twin. There is something incredibly unique about the bond between us in a supernal way that many others never experience. We continue to inspire one another as time passes. The only other kind of luck I could attribute my art career to was back when I had the opportunity to publicly execute performance art, straddling between concept-heavy and costume-forward performance. After some encouragement from a peer, I began building and styling conceptual performances and couldn’t stop expressing myself in art galleries, gay bars, and the streets of Orlando. Up until that point, my art was sculptural or 2-dimensional. Otherwise, I have not been able to say Lady Luck has had her hand in all this. Ever since I decided on a career in art, I have been putting in hours and effort to be the best I can be. Each step has been a choice, one that I have deliberated and consciously made.
Contact Info:
- Email: julietromeophotography@gmail.com
- Website: julietromeophotography.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julietromeo_artist/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JulietRomeoArtist
