Portraits of Ukrainian Monkey Trainers

NOTE: I forgot to mention that this Friday night will be the opening at the Brewery -- Calling all locals -- 7 PM ish. If you need directions, check out their website -- www.pisgahbrewing.com

Beth and I hung the exhibit of my paintings yesterday at the Pisgah Brewery. They look really great -- I'm ecstatic. Here are some pictures as well as the text from my Artist Statement / Bio for the show.

Pancho Romero Bond

Artist Statement

The current show, “Portraits of Ukrainian Monkey Trainers” attempts to capture, primarily through the medium of water color painting, the lives of Ukrainian circus workers. On a personal level, the paintings (and some of my sculptural work) allow me to reconcile my personal feelings about the simultaneous tragedy and dignity of the lives of these individuals. The work is also meant to serve as an investigation into the circular pattern of family lives and experiences, as I mimic the travel and research of my (late) great-Uncle, Milos Stemlovich. The work of Milos Stemlovich (much of it now lost or destroyed) also focused on the Ukrainian circus community and the nature and essence of truth in the oral storytelling traditions of the community. By continuing his work at the same time that I self-reflexively examine his own research, I hope to create a palimpsest in which layers of truth both mirror and mask layers of myth and apocrypha.

Bio

Pancho Romero Bond was born in Livingston, New Jersey with a slightly different name than the one that he now carries. Romero Bond was educated at Penn State University and Cambridge University as a linguist and literary theorist. Before moving to Asheville, Romero Bond lived in Brooklyn, until the noise, pollution, and pervasive sense of irony finally got the best of him. He has lived in Western North Carolina for approximately three years, and works as a musician (singer/guitarist for Sirius.B and A Gypsy & A Jew), sculptor, painter, educator, and translator. Romero Bond is a studio assistant at the Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts. He is engaged to be married to Beth Flanagan, a local potter, ceramic artist, resident artist at Odyssey, and professional sign painter.