Thunder Crush

JOHNNY ROMEO
Thunder Crush, 2025
acrylic and oil on canvas with black tray frame
1010 x 1010 mm

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Prepare for a thunderous jab of colourfully absurd Kitsch Pop with Thunder Crush. Swinging out of the gate with explosive colours and an irrepressible sense of energy, the painting depicts a boxer hound with his gloved fists raised in an imposing boxer stance. Flexing his penchant for hilarious visual puns, Romeo gleefully transforms a friendly household boxer hound into a gritty, iron-fisted pound dog finding his true calling as a heavyweight boxer. Now that the punishing pooch has mastered the ability to ‘Stand Up’, his eyes are firmly set on his next level up - the ‘Grand’ championship belt. Romeo’s brawling Technicolour hound recalls the formidable pose of boxing legend Rocky Marciano as he stares into the audience with lethal intent, ready to lay thunder on audiences with a crushing deluge of lightning-fast jabs.

Johnny Romeo Bio:

Johnny Romeo is an internationally acclaimed Australian painter, widely regarded as Australia’s leading Pop artist. As a seminal figure in the global Neo-Expressionist Pop movement, Romeo fuses the irreverent swagger of rock’n’roll with the visual semiotics of comic books and the raw immediacy of street art. GQ Magazine Australia aptly described his aesthetic as ‘part punk, part pop’, a stylistic hybrid that defines Romeo’s vivid, neon-drenched works and its balance of candy colour explosions and punchy, rebellious imagery. Romeo’s signature Kitsch Pop paintings are electrifying visual assemblages, combining Technicolour palettes and urban iconography to produce a visceral, high-octane art experience.

With sharp wit and a keen eye for social critique, Romeo is a trailblazing culture jammer in the international art scene. His work explores the construction of identity within contemporary culture, examining the pressures of life in the digital age and the omnipresent influence of celebrity figures, ever-changing social trends and the 24-hour news cycle. Through his bold, graphic compositions, Romeo reframes the relentless stream of popular media, transforming familiar visual tropes into biting, ironic reflections of our image-saturated world. Standing at the crossroads of Pop and protest, Romeo’s paintings are playful and subversive, repurposing the visual language of Pop culture, advertising, music, comic book nostalgia and silver screen entertainment to comment on the absurdities of modern life. 

Over the last decade, Johnny Romeo has enjoyed a successive number of critically acclaimed and sold-out exhibitions across Australia, New Zealand and the US. Romeo has continued his dominance as a world-class Pop artist with acclaimed and sell-out exhibitions in Sydney, Perth, Auckland, Canberra, Byron Bay, the Gold Coast and New Orleans. In 2018, Romeo notably exhibited at the Australian Consulate-General in New York. He was a highly celebrated feature artist in the HOTA Gold Coast’s Sign of the Times group exhibition, alongside street art juggernauts Banksy, Blek le Rat and Swoon. A major force in contemporary Pop art, Romeo is represented by many top galleries both in Australia and overseas.

Romeo has graced numerous prominent publications such as the Sydney Morning Herald, Vogue, Australian Art Review, Artist Profile and No Cure Magazine. Television features include the ABC 7:30 Report, Foxtel’s STVDIO, and the ABC documentary 'Conquest of Space: Science Fiction & Contemporary Art’, written and hosted by renowned art critic Dr. Andrew Frost. In 2023, he appeared in the podcast ‘Tell Us Something We Don’t Know - A Serious Chat with a Comedian’, hosted by internationally recognised Australian comic Joe Avati.

On the international stage, Johnny Romeo is a Pop Art tour de force, with hugely celebrated exhibitions in the US, including New York, Los Angeles, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Williamsport, Harrisburg), Florida and New Orleans, as well as Auckland and Napier, New Zealand and Malmö, Sweden. He has participated in several high-profile group shows across the US and Europe, including Language Art, alongside childhood hero and Pop Art icon Robert Indiana. Romeo made a massive splash as a celebrated featured artist in POP AUSTIN 2017, exhibiting with contemporary art powerhouses like Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Mr. Brainwash. Over the last decade, Romeo has made many standout appearances on US national television and universities. Since 2015, Romeo has released many books examining his paintings and art-making practice, including TV Land (2015), the 10-year retrospective survey Plastic Fantastic (2017) and Pump Up the Jams: Culture Jamming in the Works of Johnny Romeo (2019). As well as these books, there have been a number of publications produced by leading galleries on his work.

As one of the biggest names in Pop Art today, Romeo’s works are highly sought-after globally and held in prominent Australian and international public and private collections. He has collaborated on illustrious projects with the likes of leading US snowboarding company Gilson Boards, craft beer alchemists Zeroday Brewing Company, world-famous punk band Blink 182 and luxury car brand Lexus Australia.