About

Michael is an architect and city planner who recently retired from the University of Cincinnati, after a long career in academia. In the past several years he has gone back to his first love of drawing and painting and has devoted his time to making art using many different art forms and media, as well as designing and building furniture, carving wood, and turning vessels on a lathe.

He grew up in the Greek island of Crete, in a family of artists and surrounded by art. His early memories are of accompanying his father, the plein air painter Kostas Romanos, in his frequent outdoors expeditions. Michael helped his father carry his art supplies and set up for landscape painting. On these expeditions Michael would draw, imitating his father’s Cretan landscapes. These memories and experiences have shaped his life-long love for light and its power to create atmosphere and influence moods in his paintings.

Michael took classes in drawing and sculpture during the years of his architectural education and practice and has in recent years attended classes and workshops in drawing and painting using a variety of media.

He believes that art is an essential part of our lives, and that its purpose is to make our lives happier and hopeful. He likes to paint the faces of people in contemplation, landscapes filled with light, and scenes of everyday life showing people doing what they enjoy. His art has been informed, inspired and influenced by his many years of traveling and living around the world. Since the 1980s he has lived and worked for extended periods of time In Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and India. His art from these international experiences has been exhibited in group shows of drawings, paintings, photography and furniture design in the United States, Brazil, Greece and Indonesia.

Michael lives and creates his artwork in Cincinnati, where he has resided since the 1980s.