Cara Romero, “Panûpünüwügai (Living Light)”
- Democracy Chain
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
by Lynn Trimble
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix
Continuing through June 28, 2026
Thirteen Indigenous artists and intellectuals sit together at a long table, as depicted in a large-scale photograph mounted high on a wall overlooking a central space at the Phoenix Art Museum. Their elevated presence counters demeaning stereotypes of Indigenous peoples promulgated through art histories, colonial narratives, and mainstream culture.
Titled “The Last Indian Market” (2014), the photograph is an iconic work by Cara Romero, an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe. Originally curated by Jami C. Powell (Osage) for the Hood Museum in New Hampshire, Romero’s exhibition includes over fifty of Romero’s works spanning 2013 to 2025 — plus Chemehuevi basketry and ephemera of her creative practice.
“The Last Indian Market” calls to mind Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” (c. 1495-1498), which is visible across a chasm when standing at the exhibition’s entrance. It signals the ways Romero centers collaboration, Indigenous diversity, and contemporary Native cultures while critiquing Eurocentrism and colonialist narratives. For “The Last Indian Market” Romero gathered Indigenous creatives working in and around Santa Fe, including Marcus Amerman (Choctaw), whose “Buffalo Man” figure sits at the table’s center.
Friends and family, described by the artist as collaborators, frequently appear in Romero’s work. Some appear in natural settings such as bodies of water or desert landscapes. Others are placed in theatrical stagings devised by the artist. Romero infuses narrative fine art photography with her own lived experience and personal identity. The women and girls she photographs convey agency, which is just one way Romero counters the reductive gaze that is so prevalent throughout the history of photography and that has perpetuated the denigration of non-European peoples.
The show is organized around five themes, each exploring a foundational element of Romero’s practice. Such an organization proves effective in guiding us through the artist’s biography as well as through the depth and breadth of her body of work. Each section — “California Desert and Mythos,” “Repatriation: Empowering Indigenous Women,” “Environmental Racism,” “Ancestral Futures,” and “Reimagined Americana” — includes primarily photographs. But the exhibition also includes site-specific installations, which bring another dimension to Romero’s world-building. Text panels for individual artworks discuss specific collaborators and settings while also drawing on the artist’s own words to provide context and intention.
Two photographs near the gallery entrance set the tone for what’s to come. “Sand and Stone” (2020) is a portrait of a woman surrounded by sand and stone that affirms deep connections between body and land. So too does the image of four Chemehuevi youth in pre-colonial dress running away from nearby towering power turbines in “Evolvers” (2019). The youths appear in several photographs, where the artist positions them as time travelers who embody the intersections of future and past.
The “California Desert and Mythos” section includes a tabletop display case filled with sketches, photographic negatives, and props used in images seen elsewhere in the show. Chemehuevi baskets sit in the center of a gallery space where they anchor the “Repatriation: Empowering Indigenous Women” section. Here, portraits of women conceived as both living people and ancestral spirits counter the stereotyped objectification and exploitation of Indigenous women. What we see here instead affirms the continuity of Indigenous cultures.
Romero also foregrounds the harm done to Indigenous ecosystems in the “Environmental Racism” section. This is where she addresses the impacts of climate change, resource extraction, and modern development in ancestral homelands. In “Ancestral Futures,” vivid colors bring a dramatic feel to Romero’s visual interplays of ancient knowledge with contemporary technologies. “The Zenith” (2022) features an astronaut floating in space amid indigenous white corn. The image covers an entire temporary wall, where it’s accompanied by dozens of corn cobs suspended from the ceiling.
Pop culture references abound in the “Reimagining Americana” section, a “what if” exercise in which the artist inserts Indigenous peoples into mainstream popular culture. One photograph, for instance, references The Beatles’ iconic “Abbey Road” album cover. Several works from Romero’s “First American Girl” series depict models standing inside life-size boxes surrounded by objects rooted in their own cultural heritage. These playfully highlight the vast diversity of Indigenous cultures and identities.
At the center of this section, Romero’s site-specific installation returns us to the collaborative aspect of her art practice. In a circular configuration of vintage television sets, screens show scenes of making several of the works seen elsewhere in the show.
“Panûpünüwügai (Living Light)” comes to a quiet yet dramatic close with “Coyote Appears at Muhaḍagĭ Doʼag (Greasy Mountain)” (2026), a large-scale triptych created at South Mountain Park and Preserve in Phoenix especially for the exhibition. In it, Romero’s treatment of artist Dre Nolin (San Carlos Apache, Salt River Pima-Maricopa) embodies “the human connection to Coyote and all animals.”
By presenting her documented creative process and introducing us to her ever-expanding circle of collaborators, Romero fiercely challenges preconceived notions about Indigenous peoples past and present. Moreover, she invites us to join her around that long table where the dialogue is just getting started. It’s a welcoming that we want to join.
Lynn Trimble is a Phoenix-based art writer whose work ranges from arts reporting to arts criticism. During a freelance writing career spanning more than two decades, over 1,000 of her articles exploring arts and culture have been published in magazine, newspaper and online formats. Follow her work on Instagram, @artmusingsaz.
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