Over the past few years, visual memories of natural disasters, hurricanes, war, protesting and adversity perpetuated in media, have profoundly affected the artist Rostarr. Burned into his memory like a mild form of post-traumatic stress, the artist feeling both powerless and compassionate, created these new works as a cathartic way to pay homage to the victims and communities affected. The endless process and cycles of creation and destruction reflect some hierarchical levels of truth and reality. Rostarr, uses fragments retrieved from experience and memory, then separates their entities in time and space, creating a unified being; a vortex theatre where organic interpretative elements are stylized and reduced in design, creating complex but natural harmonic forms. His employment of calligraphy as a medium of interpretation, has an aesthetic appeal but also includes an underlying component of inner and personal spirituality. The use of interlaced patterns balance depth with intricate lines that zigzag and knot, temporarily alienating the viewer only to allow experiences of new boundless and fearless freedom.

Romon Kimin Yang aka Rostarr is a multi-disciplinary artist, painter and filmmaker living and working in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of The School of Visual Arts where he studied experimental graphic design and printmaking, Early in his career he has managed to produce work in both the art and graphic design spheres, blurring the lines between the two. As a painter he is more widely known for his colorful abstract polymorphic paintings, totemic iconographic characters and mostly black & white calligraphic drawings. Always creating in a freeform and spontaneous manner, he is continually striving to find freedom within style, medium and form, while building upon the visual language he terms “Graphysics”, a word that exemplifies the energy and geometric dynamism characteristic in his work. Rostarr is also a founding member of the group Barnstormers, a collective established in 1999 of approximately 40 artists.

In 2000, he was named one of I.D. magazine’s “I.D. 40 under 30”, and recognized as an honoree at the 2004 A.I.C.P show held at the MOMA for his contribution to a celebrated Nike campaign. In 2010, his 45 minute motion painting film with Soundwalk, entitled “Kill The Ego” was shown at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, Fondation Vasarely in France and at 2010 Venice Short Film Festival. His artwork has been reviewed in Artforum, Modern Painters, The New York Times, The Village Voice, and Libération among other publications, and he has had solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Paris, Milan, New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Puerto Rico, and has participated in group shows on both a national and international level, also extensively as part of the esteemed “Beautiful Losers” show which has toured museums and contemporary art centers worldwide.