Diego Romero

Look at one of Diego Romero's pots and you must smile. The pots themselves are stunning artistic creations, molded of coil upon coil of northern New Mexico clay. But it's the images drawn on them in what might at a quick glance seem like traditional style that tickle the mind.

"I'm a chronologist of the absurdity of human nature," Romero explains.

His black and white images--part classic Greek, part comic book, part Native American, and entirely contemporary--are narratives on culture, characters, and the quirks of everyday life. But his wry humor has a definite edge that is often sharply focused on themes of violence, religion, war, and sexuality.

Romero and his brother, contemporary painter Mateo Romero, grew up in California, sons of a Native American father and a European American mother. But Diego felt drawn to New Mexico from visits to family at Cochiti Pueblo as a youth.


"I always wanted to be here," he says. "My tribe, my DNA is here."


Although his home is in Santa Fe, where he enjoys restaurants, galleries, and people watching, he also remains connected to Cochiti. "I am Indian, but I'm also a white man" he says, "and I'm comfortable with that." It is that keen insight into complexity that sets his work apart.



Learn more about the rest of Santa Fe's featured edgy artists here