Adam Romano is a Fine Artist, Curator, and retired Tattooist based here in Chattanooga.
He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised in the carnival business. “I was born into the business — my dad was the general manager of a regional show” he said. “I worked a game that I ran every year. It was the hardest game on the midway — the Bottle Up.”
He said he would demonstrate and try to show visitors the technique to win. They would then try the game of skill — at $2 a play. “But most couldn’t do it, because it was challenging. It was a skill that I had been doing for a long time, but I was just a 16-year-old kid. It killed the older visitors — you know, the dads and people that came out of the beer garden” he said. “When they could win, they would take home the largest stuffed animal we had.”
Adam and his family worked at a carnival that travelled all around the Chicagoland area for six months of the year, visiting a different location and diverse neighborhood every week. During winter the family lived in Key Largo, Fla. and later Lake Havasu, Arizona.
This nomadic upbringing fueled his lifelong curiosity about culture, history, and visual storytelling. And at the age of 18, Adam left the carnival world behind to pursue more creative endeavors - leading to a life of art, tattoo, and travel.
“My grandmother was a working painter,” he said. “She was a multimedia artist. She did wonderful oil paintings, bronze sculptures, and woodworking. Looking back on her life it seemed like every couple of years she would do a full series in a different medium. Then I found out after she died that she was a graphic artist in the 1950’s also. Being around art from a young age, I knew I wanted to be an artist.”
He said music influenced his Gothic art style. “I was a brooding highschooler and I was never in one place for very long,” he said. “I moved to a different town in middle school so, for whatever reason, I felt like an outsider. Music is what got me into this style.”
Before becoming a multimedia Fine Artist, Adam began a tattoo apprenticeship. “It was growing up in a counterculture that drew me to tattoo,” he said. “Almost as soon as I knew I wanted to be an artist, I knew I wanted to be a tattooist and covered in tattoos. I began a traditional apprenticeship when I was 18 and was a tattooist for 16 years.”
Adam spent years traveling to hone his craft, eventually owning his own studio and immersing himself in the study of tattoo, art history, and the modern expression of grief.
“I’ve come close to dying a couple of times and it’s always been in the back of my mind,” he said about his current artwork.
One such example was the time he and his wife and daughter decided to move to Chattanooga so his daughter could be closer to her grandparents.
“My dad was helping us move,” he said. “He was driving a truck with a trailer that had all of our things in it. He got hit by a semi and his whole rig flipped 360 degrees through the air and landed back on its wheels. The trailer sailed off of the hitch and spread all our stuff on the side of the highway in New Mexico. I was driving behind him and saw the whole thing — I had to drive off into the medium to save myself and my family. My dad is okay. Everything was wild. No one got hurt. So, I choose to, in the work that I’m doing right now, live with that and think about moments like that. It reflects in what I create because I want people, the viewer, to come to terms with death.”
He retired from tattooing in 2022 and has focused his practice entirely on Fine Art.
I first saw Adam’s work during an exhibit he and fellow artist Kaleb Knowles displayed at the 109 Gallery in Chickamauga called Life / Death. For this exhibit he represented death and used his preferred color of black.
He had a series of paintings featuring skulls that grabbed my attention. For me, personally his work balances that thin veil, that realm between life and death so that we can learn to communicate about it in a way that makes it comfortable.
But not all his art is black and white.
“I work in other mediums too,” he said. “In the American Witches solo show that I have, which explores history, death, entertainment, and corruption, I’m painting these posthumous portraits of the accused witches of Salem. Those are in full color. When I work in black, I want it to be away from reality in a certain way, and cut down to the bare bones of a design. It’s interesting to see a collection that’s just black and white, like I’m going to be showing in Atlanta, compared to a full collection of color work, which I'll show in Athens.”
The dual showcases present a comprehensive look into his signature dark aesthetic, featuring new works that explore themes of mortality, human history, and generational grief.
Solo Art Exhibition: American Witches at The Arts Center
- Exhibition Dates: September 25 – October 30, 2026
- Opening Reception: October 2, 2026, 5-7 p.m.
- Location: The Arts Center, Athens, TN
The Arts Center in Athens, TN, will host American Witches, a solo exhibition showcasing 12 original oil & acrylic paintings alongside one preparatory drawing. The collection delivers poignant, posthumous portraits of individuals accused during the Salem witch trials of 1692, giving voice and presence to those targeted during a pivotal moment of American history. This exhibition runs in conjunction with a live stage run of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, also hosted at The Arts Center. The Crucible kicks off its opening performance on October 2, 2026, at 7 p.m., immediately following the art reception.
Fair Participation: The Other Art Fair Atlanta
- Dates: October 1 – October 4, 2026
- Location: Atlanta, GA
Romano will also showcase a selected collection of original works at The Other Art Fair Atlanta. The exhibition on view will feature newly completed Ink and Acrylic on Canvas paintings as well as fine Ink on paper works. The collection delves into the subject of Death examined through the lens of generational land and humanity.
Over the course of his career, he has earned over 25 awards across fine art and tattoo disciplines. His work has been featured in national and international publications. Romano holds a bachelor’s degree in art (Museum Studies) alongside three additional degrees in art and business.
He has a background spanning over 36 exhibitions — including these recent features at The Other Art Fair Atlanta and a solo show at the Art Center in Athens, TN — his work is held in numerous private collections, shown in galleries, and has been displayed in 3 museums across the United States.
One of his portrait drawings is even in the collection of Steve Forbes. October also sees him participate in the Spirited Soiree Group Exhibition at Hunchback Gallery in Worcester, MA, the Grimoire Academy Gothic Market in Cartersville, GA on October 10 & 11, and the 3rd annual Walk Through the Garden Art Show Hosted by La Paz in Chattanooga on October 17.