For the last decade he has been working on a number of projects, including several that use decorative needlework techniques, notably appliqué and embroidery, to further embellish photographs. In his New Serie, for example, Romussi took modern images of women and he covers their faces with various motifs, including flowers, masks and spirals, in order to embellish and obscure their facial features.
In #Anti-Serie he uses images of men and women whose faces are literally hidden with embroidery, sometimes in the form of (modern) paintings, on other occasions with stitched graffiti. In Network, Romussi produced a series of abstract faces that appear to have been influenced by Picasso and the cubists, but in a range of bright colours worked in a variety of stitches. In another series, called Dance, he embellished vintage photographs of dancers, especially ballet dancers, and embroidered their dresses in a variety of stitches and coloured threads.
The series called Jacket featured a matador about to enter a bull ring. The matador is wearing a colourfully embroidered jacket embellished with embroidery, applied bands and beads, and so forth. There are other series by Romussi, but the above series have been chosen to give an indication of the range of his work with respect to decorative needlework.
Digital sources:
- http://www.madeinslant.com/2012/05/embroidered-photographs-of-dancers-by-jose-romussi/ (retrieved 16 April 2016).
- http://www.joseromussi.com/ (retrieved 16 April 2016).
Digital source of illustration (retrieved 22 June 2016).
GVE