Y A N K E E   L O N D O N  S T U D I O

Musings from a Yankee artist abroad in London...
Journal Excerpt: A Harlot's Progress
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I went to see A Rake’s Progress and stumbled on an unexpected intersection of a lot of things: A Harlot’s Progress. Which I find more interesting. Maybe because I’m a woman? Or how women are framed by circumstance? Continuous use of tilting/falling, overturned, broken vessels. It seems like every little thing had a significant twist/ an addition to the narrative. Sometimes that was cloying - or contrived...well, it’s all contrived? With caricatures. And after hours at the museum I googled a good place for a coffee and up pops Café de Provence… on all places: Drury Lane! So of course I went there. Excellent – and my first Pastel de Nata. Alignment, why fight it? I wonder if the current owners of the [American motel chain] Drury Inn know about that street’s history and I also wonder about the kitchiness of gin. Now it seems the roles are reversed. With Hogarth it was Gin Street vs Beer Street. But beer is now, or seems to be associated with working class and gin, I guess good gin – associated with upper class? Gin martini? Shaken, not stirred… Meanwhile, the other element I discovered at the Soane museum was all the use of mirrors. Especially convex mirrors. And then I encounter them again in Olafur Eliasson’s  work. Mirrors, reflections – mediated reality – is that what a reflection is? All the focus about “looking glass”. How is looking in the mirror, and what we see as our reflection different than “real” life? I sort of see this with L* scars. What she sees as diminishing her scars actually highlights them in “real” life, versus a photo/ selfie life. How can you agree with someone’s perception? Should you? What if they ask? Is the viewer “fair game” given they’ve placed themselves in a public space? Or placed themselves in position to your work? 
You are here – map 
Don’t cross the line – museums (with an alarm!) 
Stay back
Come forward, closer 
Mind the gap
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    November 2019
Romi Sloboda was born in the United States and spent her childhood living in both the United States and her mother's native city, Seoul, Korea. She studied printmaking at the Santa Reparata Graphic Arts Centre in Florence, and received her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and her MFA from London Metropolitan University. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the United States as well as in Europe. She has been awarded residencies from the Cité Internationale des Arts Fondation in Paris, the University of Texas at Dallas, and the Herekeke Arts Center in New Mexico. Romi  lives and works in London, United Kingdom and Santa Fe, New Mexico.