11 Questions for Roni Sherman Ramos

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Roni Sherman Ramos’s first career was as a nurse and healthcare activist on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. From an early age, however, Ramos wanted to become an artist. She studied with Fred Gutzeit at Long Island University in 1987 and then with Nicholas Buhalis at 4^th Street Studio until 1993. She’s a member of the Atlantic Gallery, which is owned and managed by its artist members. Her most recent solo exhibition, entitled Re-Vision (Nov. 5 to Nov. 23, 2024), references her loss of vision to macular degeneration, which has caused her work to change.

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A’Dora Phillips & Brian Schumacher: You started your career as a nurse and healthcare activitist. Can you tell us more about that?

Roni Sherman Ramos: In 1970 my late husband [the community activist Paul Ramos] and I wrote a proposal for $10,000 to purchase a 27-foot long RV. We equipped the van to serve as a mobile clinic so as to provide quality healthcare to the medically underserved people of the Lower East Side. As we raised more funds, we rented a facility on Rutgers Street, then East Broadway to provide a permanent facility to expand services to residents of the Lower East Side where the population was primarily Puerto Rican. This effort eventually became the Betances Health Center, which stands today on Henry Street and is a state-of-the art primary care facility serving the Latino and Chinese populations.

AP & BS: You studied with Fred Gutzeit at Long Island University in 1987 and then with Nicholas Buhalis at 4^th Street Studio up until 1993. What inspired you to study art at this point in your life, and with these artists?

RSR: My interest in art began as a 5-year-old and has only grown through the years. Because I did not get accepted to my first choices of art schools, I instead pursued nursing education as an alternate path. However, I never stopped making art. I studied with mentors who were attracted to my aesthetic. This journey led me to abstraction, which is the focus of my current artwork.

AP & BS: Your most recent show at the Atlantic Gallery is your sixth and is called Re-Vision. Why did you title it Re-Vision?

RSR: Re-Vision includes the paintings I’ve made in the last year and a half, when the most significant loss of my vision has occurred. 

The body of work I produced features highly chromatic colors; I would presume that this vibrant color palette is the result of my low vision acuity. Rather than relying solely on brushes, I also applied paint with my fingers, which may also perhaps be the result of my vision loss.

The show includes 22 paintings of various sizes from 8″ square to 40″ square. The title reflects “seeing with a new lens”, reflecting on the way I see now and how I saw before. I was fortunate to have a curator arrange my work in the gallery. By leaving lots of space between each painting, I believe each one of them was enhanced.

AP & BRS: If you had to select one work from the show that you are especially proud of, what would it be? How did you create it?

RSR: It would be the four small works I chose for my poster entitled Heartbeat I, II, III, IV. Each one is only 10″ square.

I followed a similar process for creating each of them. After gessoing the wood panels I began applying oil paint. The only idea I have at the beginning of the process of working is what colors I will use. I apply paint broadly and take note of how the colors look together. Using my hands, brushes, and squeegees, I blend, allowing drips and various textures to arise. While semi dry, the process of destroying and rebuilding the work goes on. My process often involves sanding or scraping or glazing over the entire panel and then sanding it down to reveal the underpainting.

AP & BS: When did you begin to develop macular degeneration and how did you feel when you learned you had an eye disease? Were you already an artist at this point in your life?

RSR: I developed drusen in my fifties but didn’t have any symptoms until about 7 years ago (I’m 79 now). My mother had macular degeneration, but in her lifetime never developed symptoms as bad as mine. For so many years I thought I would not experience vision loss. I religiously took many nutritional supplements that I believe delayed the onset of symptoms. Even now, I use a small electronic device that employs microstimulation to improve circulation in my retinas.

It has been a jarring experience as an artist to lose my sight. I have always made art so the progression of sight loss, which has gone from gradual to more rapid, is disorienting. I’m hoping my vision stabilizes and I’m not rendered blind.

AP & BS: What do you see when you look out across a room, or down the street?

RSR: When I look down the street, I can see the whole visual field, but it is largely blurred. I can’t read signs or see the faces of oncoming people.

AP & BS: When you are working on a painting, how does your vision loss inform your habits and processes?

RSR: When I paint, the most significant change I’ve had to make is the elimination of small details; I paint more broadly. I do enjoy the result, however, and don’t find it frustrating to adapt. (Magnifying labels and putting caps on paint tubes helps me to find the colors I’m searching for.) I do not have total blindness in my central vision, perhaps a benefit of that daily microstimulation in combination with supplements.

AP & BS: Describe a moment for you painting, at work at the canvas. What is going through your thoughts when you hold a brush and consider what to do next?

RSR: My process is directed by the materials I use. With no intention to begin with, I take the lead from the painting itself. What I feel is a finished work one day may end up being revised on the next.

AP & BS: Can you tell us more about the Atlantic Gallery, which you are co-president of?

RSR: About 8 years ago I applied and was accepted as a member to an artist-run gallery in Chelsea called Atlantic Gallery. (Previously I had been reluctant to submit my work in juried shows or pursue other artist opportunities.) The gallery is in a Landmark building on 28th Street in Chelsea, which has several artist-run and commercial galleries. The monthly dues are high, but for me it is worth the investment: it has provided me with a wonderful community and the incentive to consistently produce work, as well as the opportunity to show it, every two years.

AP & BS: Is there any connection between your first career in healthcare and your second one as an artist?

RSR: My entire life experience informs my work. There is no separation between one phase of life and another, since my aesthetic, my choice of colors, the composition, can all be reminiscent of nature, music, or just about anything else. My healthcare career was a large part of my life and although I am not consciously aware of it appearing in my work, it was part of who I am today and will always be there influencing what I do.

AP & BS: What is one of your favorite paintings by another artist and why?

RSR: I love the paintings of Bill Jensen, a living painter who is my age. His works are at once beautiful and complex, sometimes including figuration in a skillful way, other times pure abstraction.

Another living artist I admire is Mark Bradford who makes huge paintings by layering collage, paint and sometimes found objects, then sanding and scraping, then more collage. The result is a highly dimensional work within which are contemporary political references.

I love Georgio Morandi for the simplicity of form and color and the fact that he spent his entire career painting the same bottles and vases but always made them different and intriguing.

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Roni Sherman Ramos, who lives and works in Brooklyn, co-founded The Betances Health Center, a primary care facility on the underserved Lower East Side of Manhattan. She is a longstanding member and co-president of the artist-run Atlantic Gallery in NYC, and a member of the New York Artists Circle. She was included in the Master Abstraction Workshop Residencies at Mass MoCA and the Julia and David White Artist Residencies in Costa Rica. For more information on Ramos and her work, visit her website.