Channel Two
Johnny Romeo,
Acrylic and oil on canvas
101cm x 101cm

Sometimes we need to reach for the stars to in order to find home.

In Channel Two, Johnny Romeo leans into his fascination with elevation and space as he depicts a sugary-hued ET soaring through the heavens, determined to not just phone home, but go home.

Emblazoned with David Bowie’s iconic lightning bolt makeup from the cover of ‘Aladdin Sane’ (1973), Romeo’s rendition of ET echoes Bowie’s legendary Star Man, a creature from out outer space on adventure on Earth, afraid, alone, and 3 million miles from home. This is reinforced through the title Channel Two, a nod to the lyrics in Bowie’s ‘Star Man’ (1972) and its insistence on connecting with the celestial figure by ‘switching on the TV’ and ‘picking him up on channel two’.

Despite the themes of alienation and distance explored in the painting, the use of vivacious, candy-coloured hues injects ET with a life-affirming energy and determination. Romeo extends on this point through shifting the word assemblage ‘Star Gaze’ into the phrase ‘Star Days’ as a way of conveying ET’s excitement to return home, his bright eyes open and gazing towards the vast expanse of the cosmos as he hopes for ‘Star Days’.

The reference to stars further evokes Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s 2018 smash rap duet ‘All the Stars’, movingly capturing ET’s homebound hopefulness turning into a reality as ‘all the stars are closer.’

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