Join us this Saturday, April 30, 2022, 4-6pm, for the CLOSING RECEPTION of Frank Romero's SOLO SHOW: "Return To Paradise",  comprising of work created during the pandemic, on the beach at Hanalei Bay, Hawaii. "Return To Paradise" is an exhibition of new works on paper, canvas, and low relief sculptures of Hawaiian landscapes and classic cars seen on the island by the artist. 

Romero first went to Kauai in the early 1980s with his family and old friend, Carlos Almaraz. He got to know the north shore around Hanalei Bay,  and Carlos loved it so much that he stayed and ultimately purchased a house with his wife, Elsa. Frank went back occasionally to see Carlos and Elsa and got to know the area even better, particularly the ocean vistas and mountain views. Both Frank and Carlos have captured the mountains particularly when it rains, and the mountains come alive with waterfalls in their paintings and graphic works.  

For many years, Frank and his wife, Sharon, have spent their spring and summers in the south of France where Frank painted many landscapes of Provence, still life drawings and paintings, and scenes of daily life in bistros, beaches, mountains, and valleys. He has also painted cars and Parisian cityscapes. 

During the last two years when the Covid-19 pandemic restricted travel to Europe, Frank and Sharon decided to go to the Kauai near the village of Hanalei. They asked  Elsa to recommend a house that they could rent and create artworks in paradise. They ended up in a seaside home at Tunnels Beach near Elsa’s and the entry to trails where long hikes could end up close to the Nā Pali Coast.  

Frank spent the entire month of July 2021 painting in and around this special part of  Kauai. His current exhibition at Eastern Projects is full of the images that caught Frank’s attention, the plants and flowers, the sea and beaches, the palm trees, the steep mountains with their waterfalls, and the magical sunsets from the north shore of Kauai.

Artist’s Bio 

Frank Romero (Los Angeles, 1941) began his art career in the early 1970s as a participant in the art collective Los Four. The group defined and promoted awareness of the Chicano community in Los Angeles with their art. Romero’s murals and Los Four’s activism in the Chicano Civil Rights movement brought Chicano art to the attention of the mainstream art world and made an impact when the collective was invited to have the first Chicano exhibition in a mainstream museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1974.