ROMUALDA SCIUTO, alias "ROMUA", was born in Giarre (CT), where she attends the Art Institute, learning, in addition to the traditional painting techniques, also using manual looms for textile production. Her first influences are related to oil painting and figurative style, especially those of artists such as Giovan Battista Tiepolo, Amedeo Modigliani and Paul Gaugin, who all share, in their ways, the expressive and innovative use of color and originality pictorial composition. Romualda's young works, in fact, are represented by reproductions ("Old man with beard", "Woman with Parrot" by Tiepolo, "Woman's Face" by Modigliani) and sensual and expressive feminine portraits.

 

At the end of studies, Romualda's journey seems to continue along the canonic tracks of family and professional life, until, after his son's marriage, in 2011, her creative inspiration explodes suddenly and tumultuously, with production, in few months, in dozens of paintings,  that deviate from figurative and classic techniques to turn into an abstract style characterized by a clever combination of bright colors and weaving of geometric lines. Those first abstract productions, appreciated in her first solo exhibition set up in December 2011 at the Council Hall in Francavilla di Sicilia (CT), are grafted on real subjects such as leaves, corals, shells or branches, or move toward a stylized geometry dominated by strong color shades. Already in the next year, in her fourth solo exhibition "Emotions" set up at the Collegio Santonoceto in Acireale in 2012, her style is already outlined in a more intensive and personal way, and the artist presents herself to the public with the stage name "Romua", an expression of a new artistic personality. For "Romua", in fact, abstractionism is a means of expressing in complete liberty the hidden emotions suddenly freed from the burden of responsibilities and roles imposed by life, and art appears as an incessant search for the Self, in which to dissolve inner conflicts and discover and bring to light the deepest and unconscious emotions.

 

The works are made of acrylic, glossy and sparkly colors on large supports, where to express more freely the turmoil and the explosion of emotions, and, although they are carried out freely and without preparatory schemes, they are characterized by an harmonious composition of shapes and colors, and for the constant search for aesthetic performance. The curved lines, swirls, circles, often opposed to fragmented details and coupled with the recurrent use of the golden leaf, give us a sense of opulence, pleasure and positivity, while the "space" representations express the wonderful journey of the Ego to the search for the origins of Creation and Self. On the other hand, "Romua" also approaches social issues, particularly those linked to the current socio-economic crisis and the anguish it generates, even through the use of "poor" media such as cardboard, contrasted, with a perpetual positive and reactive spirit, by the use of gold or elaborate golden and silver wooden frames.

 

In her continuous expressive research and creative experimentation, Romualda occasionally relapsed to the figurative style with original depictions of female portraits, wrapped in glittering colors and sinuous and luminous lines, as well as in the original productions of wood carvings made of molded pieces, painted in acrylic and assembled according to an original compositional scheme.

 

So, in the art of Romualda Sciuto, the phrase George Bernard Shaw is added: "You use a glass mirror to look at your face and ... the artwork to look at your soul."

 

Since her first solo show in 2011, "Romua" has received in a short time a great success of critic and public, setting up another 7 solo shows in 4 years, and exhibiting in numerous group shows across all Sicily and Italy.​

​