Remi Brandli
Hailing from the Los Angeles neighborhood Highland Park, and raised by artist Frank Romero, Chicano and Mexican culture bleeds from the ink pressed prints that are signature to each of Sonia Romero’s creations.
Romero’s work blends artistic mediums of painting and print blocking, as well as visuals of the environmental conditions that have impacted her cultural identity. Her 2011 piece, “Tattooed Man,” displays a male figure against a vibrant mural made from washi paper. The vibrant bird-printed chain link fence is subtly revealed from beneath black acrylic paint. Block printed onto the man is junk food like soda, fried foods and desserts, tattooed across his back, skull and forearms.
“Romero hopes to create a dialogue about the dearth of food choices and food availability in our densest and poorest urban neighborhoods,” reads the description of the piece. “She acknowledges that shaming communities for their lifestyle and food choices is hurtful and, even, racist.”
Accessibility is at the heart of each work of art. Romero’s platforming of cultural identity and motifs claimed by the Mexican community and in her experience creating public murals. Also featured in the Thatcher exhibit are photos of her “Mariachi Plaza” mural installed in the Los Angeles Boyle Heights Metro station in 2020.
“The whole point of public art is that it’s accessible to people outside of scary museum institutions that are more elitist,” Romero told the Foghorn “When you’re creating art for (museums), you have to think about making the work legible to all kinds of people, not people with art degrees or masters.”
Displayed in the Mariachi Plaza mural, on a sky blue background, is a collection of objects symbolic to the cultural identity of the Boyle Heights neighborhood. One hand juts out, holding a “Justicia!” picket sign, another holds a pair of acid green sneakers, another brings Challah bread representative of the Jewish community present in the neighborhood. Romero herself even snuck a relic of her own family’s photos into the mural, staking her claim as a member of this community.
In describing her process of creating pieces like the Mariachi Plaza, Romero said she prioritizes visual translations for people who may be outside the culture she portrays. “When I go into a new area that I’m not familiar with, I’m trying to think of symbols that will contain history and culture,” she said.
Thatcher gallery assistant Kathryn Clarke-Garcia, a junior art history and fine arts major , appreciated the tradition of Mexican muralism being highlighted in the “Taken Root” exhibit. “Muralism has forever been a tool for education,” said Clarke-Garcia. “To be creating this new visual language for Chicano pride, Latino pride, but also being able to talk about what’s happening to our Earth.” Pieces of Romero’s, such as the “Piles” collection, focus on themes of consumption and over-consumption, in terms of diet as seen in “Commodity Corn Pile,” or the excess resource extraction from the land in “Bison Skull Pile.”
The use of physically intensive printmaking techniques, such as wood blocking and screenprinting, is another aspect of the exhibit that fascinated Clarke-Garcia. “There’s a lot of references to textile work because they were traditionally feminine ways of making [art] they weren’t seen as prestigious,” she said.
“She tries to kind of blend old and new styles of making art in her work,” said Diego Gomez, a third year design major and designer at Thatcher Gallery. “The installation that she did in the metro station was kind of a combination of the old mural style of Chicano art with her papercut style.”
Romero’s creations are infused with her bi-cultural identity, being raised by her mother, a Jewish Westsider of LA, and her father. “I often struggle with being at a disadvantage by not feeling like I belong,” said Romero. “It’s also an advantage because I know two different cultures at once. I’m able to speak to two different cultures.”
Originally commissioned at Loyola Marymount University by Karen Rapp in 2023, Romero’s “Taken Root” exhibit will live at Thacher Gallery until April 15th.
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