Writer’s Eye 2022 Spotlight Talk: Cara Romero’s “Naomi”
1 2022-12-08T17:52:21+00:00 Jessica Bocinski a602570e86f7a6936e40ab07e0fddca6eccf4e9b 277 2 Join UVA educators for information and guided observation of Cara Romero’s “Naomi” in this Writer’s Eye 2022 Spotlight Talk created for The Fralin Museum of Art’s 36th annual ekphrastic writing program. Cara Romero (b. 1977) was born in Inglewood, California and is an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, native to areas between southernCalifornia and Arizona. Naomi is part of the artist’s First American Girl series and depicts a woman of the Northern Chumash culture garbed in traditional clothes and jewelry made from natural material. Standing in front a wall of items significant to the Chumash people, Naomi wears a traditional basket hat and holds up two Chumash feathered dance sticks. The hot pink in combination with black and white details in this enclosed space—reminiscent of a packaged doll’s box—reflect modern California, while the triangular pattern abstracts a pinecone motif significant in traditional Chumash beadwork. In this series, the artist reclaims the imagery of Native women and celebrates tradition in a time of modernity plain 2022-12-08T17:53:43+00:00 Jessica Bocinski a602570e86f7a6936e40ab07e0fddca6eccf4e9bThis page is referenced by:
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Naomi by Cara Romero
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Cara Romero is a contemporary fine art photographer. An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero was raised between contrasting settings: the rural Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, CA and the urban sprawl of Houston, TX. Romero’s identity informs her photography, a blend of fine art and editorial photography, shaped by years of study and a visceral approach to representing Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, collective history, and lived experiences from a Native American female perspective.
"As an Indigenous photographer, I embrace photography as my tool to resist Eurocentric narratives and as a means for opening audiences’ perspectives to the fascinating diversity of living Indigenous peoples. My approach fuses time-honored and culturally specific symbols with 21st-century ideas . This strategy reinforces the ways we exist as contemporary Native Americans, all the while affirming that Indigenous culture is continually evolving and imminently permanent." - Cara Romero
Naomi by Cara Romero represents one of the first “American Girls.” The model is a Northern Chumash woman from San Luis Obispo; her mother is a regalia maker. Unlike much of Romero’s work, Naomi does not use photoshop and was created with real props and a full-size box. Posing like a Barbie doll, Naomi is “an examination of past misrepresentation of indigenous women as dolls and it is meant to reclaim an identity” by juxtaposing the modern world with her rich and beautifully complex culture. The eye-catching black and white triangles and pink ground create a contemporary Californian vibe that fuses with the traditional Native American dress and objects. Romero creates a space for her community to speak out about their relationships and adjustments to the contemporary world. Her work asks that we create a safe future for girls like Naomi to embody their own values and traditions.
