Cara Romero

Cara Romero was born in Inglewood, CA. and was raised on the Chemehuevi Valley Indian reservation. Her father is Chemehuevi, and her mother is German-Irish.[1] Romero majored in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Houston.[1] She later studied photography at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Oklahoma State University.[2][1] Romero is married to Pueblo artist, Diego Romero, and the couple has two sons.[1]

Cara was the first Executive Director of the Chemehuevi Cultural Centre. In 2007-2010, she was an elected member of the Chemehuevi Tribal Council, she became the Chairman of the Chemehuevi Education Board, and the Chairman of the Chemehuevi Early Education Policy Council.[2]

Romero was influenced by the photography of Edward Curtis early in her career.[3] Later, she felt that her initial approach was not genuine to her own experience and began to experiment with different techniques and settings for her photographs.[3] She began to use digital tools, such as Photoshop, to combine her photographs and also to use more color photography.[3] Romero's contemporary work includes a large amount of staging to create a sense of theater and expresses a diverse picture of Native American identities.[3] The Santa Fe New Mexican describes her work as a "sometimes whimsical, often complex examination of modern culture with a distinctly modern Indigenous worldview."[1]

The Bristol Post quoted her series, Water Memories, as "breathtaking," and that it "exposes the fragile and essential relationships that exist between people, water and life."[4] Water Memories was shown in 2016 at the exhibition, "STILL," held at the Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol.[5][4] Romero's work, shown at "CAPTURED" (2015) at the gallery contained both "intimate portraits and playful reconstructions of iconic masterworks."[6] Cara Romero's powerful female portraits were featured prominently in a spring 2017 exhibition ‘We Are Native Women’ at Rainmaker Gallery, celebrating the strength and diversity of Native American women on the 400th anniversary of the death of Pocahontas. Her work was also presented at a conference 'Pocahontas and After' at the British Library, London in March 2017.

In the 2017 show, "Broken Boxes," held at form & concept gallery in Santa Fe, Romero's photograph, TV Indians, was described by the Albuquerque Journal as her "highest production project yet."[7] The photo juxtaposes Puebloans with media depictions of Native Americans.[7] Romero has been awarded a fellowship by the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation in 2017,[8] In October 2018 Cara Romero's photographs were exhibited by Rainmaker Gallery in the international exhibition 'Life Blood' as part of the Bloomsbury Festival and The Native Spirit Film Festival, London. In 2020, Romero was one of ten recipients of the NDN Collective's Radical Imagination Artist Grants[9] to install billboards and public displays of her photographs in the Los Angeles area.[10] Romero has also won everal awards including ribbons at major art markets.[5]

Romero has also been featured at the Four Winds Gallery in Pittsburgh,[11] and the Robert Nichols Gallery in Santa Fe.[12][13]

• Autry Museum of the American West
• Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery
• Crocker Art Museum
• Davis Museum at Wellesley College
• Fralin Museum of Art
• Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology
• Heard Museum
• Hood Museum of Art
• Institute of American Indian Arts#IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
• Lilley Museum of Art
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Minnesota Museum of American Art
• Montclair Art Museum
• Muscarelle Museum of Art
• Museum of Indian Arts and Culture
• Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
• Nevada Museum of Art
• The Newark Museum of Art
• Palm Springs Art Museum
• Peabody Essex Museum
• Coe Center (Ralph T. Coe Foundation)
• National Museum of the American Indian
• Weisman Art Museum

• Official site
• Interview with Cara Romero