Boutros Romhein

Boutros Romhein (1949) is a contemporary Syrian sculptor.
Born in 1949 in a southern Syrian town, he grew up in a land where the great Mediterranean civilisations had flourished and where many different peoples evolved their different cultures.

During his classical studies in Damascus Boutros learned crafts techniques as a summer apprentice in the city’s workshops. At an early age his vocation as an artist became manifest and at 16 he created his first works of art, sculptures in olive wood (a material in which Syria abounds). At eighteen he opened his own studio in Damascus and began to exhibit in solo and group shows, registering great success throughout Syria. He continued his preparation as an artist by journeying through Europe – Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland – where he was given the chance to take part in group shows with encouraging outcomes. His travels, sculptural work and research were to lead him to his confirmation as an artist and also to the decision to settle in Italy, in Carrara, the marble capital, in 1983. He graduated in sculpture from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara, and in 1990 set up his own studio and sculpture centre, Arco Arte.

Boutros relates to marble as the material that best incarnates what his spirit elaborates (as olive wood previously did). In marble he skilfully succeeds in expressing his thoughts and feelings. For Boutros, artistic creation and human growth are never divided but rather are superimposed, and mutually complete and influence each other. Human growth along with a corresponding artistic evolution, reaches the definition of a personal sculptural style and language. Thanks to the remarkable technical skills acquired through years of experience, Boutros is able to mould volumes fluidly and elegantly, creating sculptures with skill and mastery and achieving a musicality of form.

It has always been imperative for Boutros Romhein to hand on his craft as a sculptor (which he sees also as a way of life) and at the same time to enrich his own personal experience. This is the aim and origin of the Arco Arte sculpture studio, where since 1990 he has made his own work, set up a permanent exhibition and taught sculpture techniques. But Arco Arte is conceived above all as a centre for “sculptural thinking”, a place of meeting, contact and exchange between people of different cultures, language and background. They bring with their own life-experience an enrichment of the boundless world of sculptural expression, as Boutros Romhein sees it.

Romhein Boutros classifies his works according to three groups: “metaphoric”: bearers of forms, based on the attribution of an expression or a story deep-rooted in human life; “figuration”: these works go beyond mere figurative art to embrace symbolic forms, through their elegant lines and volumes; lastly, the "monumental" works that become a synthesis of Romhein’s individual style. Romhein’s works are to be found in private and public collections in many cities around the world.