The brothers inseparable Diego and Mateo Romero
The name conjures up images of camaraderie, of brothers in arms or in spirit. Cochiti Pueblo artists Mateo and Diego Romero (top left and right, respectively) received the name — the word for a traditional Pueblo hair bun — from their relatives. It was intended as a humorous, endearing term for two brothers who, especially in their youth, were often inseparable, and who remain so even now.
“I would feel a great space or loss if I didn’t see my brother all the time,” said Mateo Romero, a painter. “Of our original nuclear family, it’s really just me and my brother now.”
The artists are being jointly honored with the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture’s 2019 Living Treasures award at 5:30 p.m. Friday, May 24. They were selected as Living Treasures from a list of approximately 20 other nominated artists, said Della Warrior, the museum’s director. Jane Buchsbaum, Ardith Eichner, Karen Freeman, and other members of the Native Treasures Artist Committee determined the final selection, along with Warrior.
The Friday evening celebration includes a live auction and silent auction to support exhibitions and programs at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture (MIAC). In addition to artwork from the Romero brothers, the auction features stellar work from past recipients of the Living Treasures artist award, including Dan Namingha, Teri Greeves, Keri Ataumbi, and Jody Naranjo. The brothers will also have booths at I the annual Native Treasures Art Market at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center (201 W. Marcy St.) on Saturday, May 25, and Sunday, May 26. In addition, Mateo’s paintings and lithography, and Diego’s ceramics and lithography, are featured in a two-person show, The Brothers Chongo: A Tragic Comedy in Two Parts, on view through Oct. 31 in the MIAC lobby. It’s the first time the brothers have exhibited jointly since their 1995 show The Chongo Brothers: Third Generation Cochiti Artists opened at the museum. Both artists, through their respective mediums of paint and ceramics, explore the contemporary indigenous experience, sometimes with humor and often with references to their Cochiti Pueblo heritage. “Obviously, their works are very different on the surface,” said Lillia McEnaney, MIAC curatorial assistant, who co-curated the show with Tony Chavarria, the museum’s curator of ethnology. “They’re very different styles. Mateo’s is a lot more expressive, and Diego’s has a lot more fine lines. But I do think that, if you look a little deeper, they do have a lot of similar themes. The most important thing that bridges their work is the idea of narrative and storytelling and how that fosters a conversation about social issues and personal histories. It really fosters a conversation about what it means to be indigenous today.” Mateo and Diego, now in their early 50s, were born and raised in Berkeley, California, two years apart.