ABOUT ROMANA
In the world of visual art, it is rare to find artists who remain true to their inner voice over decades of creation-and rarer still, those who, even in later life, continue to create with the same passion and depth as in their youth.
Romana Milutin Fabris, born in 1941 in Dubrovnik, is one such artist: unwavering, devoted, and endlessly inspired. Her artistic education began at the School of Applied Arts in Split and Zagreb, and continued at the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade, where she laid the foundations of her distinctive visual language.
A pivotal moment in her formation came with an international scholarship from the Austrian government, which enabled her to study in Salzburg under the great master Oskar Kokoschka-a painter of profound expressionist vision, whose spirit echoes in Romana’s work without ever being immitated.
From the outset, she forged her own path-intimate but consistent, deeply personal and unmistakably her own. In 1964, she opened her first solo exhibition at the Sponza Palace in Dubrovnik, marking the beginning of a presence on the art scene that has now spanned more than six decades.
Even today, at the age of 84, Romana Milutin Fabris continues to create each day-quietly, contemplatively, with an undiminished curiosity and a profound connection to the beauty of the world around her.
Dubrovnik occupies a special place in her work. It is not merely the city of her birth, but the city of her soul-an eternal source of inspiration. Its stone walls, austere Mediterranean light, and the lush branches of bougainvillea reappear time and again on her canvases.
Through these motifs, we sense belonging, but also poetic distance-for Romana does not paint the landscape as an external scene, but as an inner experience. Her colours speak in silence, her forms exude tranquillity, and the figures in her portraits radiate a depth that reaches beyond the visible. Each painting is a page from the diary of a strong and sensitive spirit, a woman who has preserved a childlike wonder, a profound reverence for beauty, and a lifelong belief in the power of artistic expression. Romana Milutin Fabris reminds us that art is not a fleeting moment, but a lasting presence.
Her work is not only a window into her creative world, but an ode to endurance-to beauty that does not age, and to a spirit that never ceases to create.
