Eric Romero impresses in debut at Blue Rain Gallery

SANTA FE — When I opened an email from Blue Rain Gallery last week and saw images of Eric Romero’s work, I knew I had to hop in my car right away and drive to Santa Fe to experience it in person. Even in reproduction, the work showed strong drafting skills, and I was intrigued by the artist’s blending of Renaissance motifs and contemporary cultural references.

Romero’s 5-foot-tall painting, “Flor y Fuego” (“Flower and Fire”) depicts a young woman with facial piercings, ripped jeans, a Keith Haring-inspired tee and a blue hoodie, seated in front of a graffitied wall. At first glance, I saw nothing unusual about the image. But, on closer inspection, I noticed red roses in her hands and a butterfly perching on her right wrist, which gave the image a magical realist quality.

Only then did it occur to me that her blue hoodie, which is trimmed in gold and patterned with a field of gold stars, directly references the celestial blue veil or mantle worn by Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Catholic Renaissance art and in subsequent depictions of Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe. Even the cartoony “radiant heart” on her shirt recalls the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

As a child, I sometimes attended Society of Friends, or Quaker, meetings, where I was told to “look for that of God in every person.” Although I did not become a Quaker, I liked that advice. Instead of judging others by appearances, or viewing them as potential obstacles in my life, what if I looked for their inner beauty? What if I could view friends and strangers through a reverential gaze? I don’t always view people that way, but whenever I do, the whole world feels richer and more meaningful.

With the addition of a few, choice iconographic details, Romero turns ordinary people in contemporary clothing into sacred, saintly figures. In doing so, he makes us aware of just how far off our ordinary perception is from this heightened way of seeing.

“Flor y Fuego” is part of Romero’s ongoing series of secular saints, which also includes a reinterpretation of Lilith, Adam’s assertive first wife, whom some feminists hail as an archetype of independence. In a May 16 interview with Blue Rain founder Leroy Garcia for the gallery’s podcast, Romero mentioned that he used activists as models for some of the saint paintings, because he saw the same resilience in them as in their sacred, mythic counterparts.

Other Latinx artists have infused contemporary portraiture with elements of Catholic religious art, from Frida Kahlo’s mythologized self-portraits to pioneering feminist Chicano artist Yolanda M. López’s “Guadalupe” series. Like Romero, López drew parallels between the mythic Mother and real-life activists. And many Black artists, from Barkley L. Hendricks to Kehinde Wiley, have inserted Black figures into works of Catholic religious art, claiming space for themselves within the Eurocentric canon. Most of Romero’s works are less explicitly political than these examples, but they still participate in the politics of representation, most pointedly, perhaps, in “Chola Lisa,” his take on Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” Despite the jokey title, “Chola Lisa” is a painting with a lot of heart that goes much deeper than a one-liner.

Another painting, “Sabio Pendejo” (“Wise Fool”), is a still life of stacked art history and anatomy books, topped with a skull, broken eggshells, discarded orange peels and other symbols of the fragility of life popular during the 16th century “vanitas” era of Dutch art. Regrettably, Romero’s orange peels don’t quite hold up to the exquisite detail of the Dutch Masters he invokes. Pieter Claesz did it better. And the books he paints — all pre-21st century, with dusty old covers — aren’t new or strange enough to have shock value. So, compared to his other works, which mix the old and the new, and the sacred and the profane, so brilliantly, “Sabio Pendejo” feels like a dutiful but passionless academic exercise. If he pursues more still lifes in the future, I’d prefer to see him either go all-in on technique — reviving the lost art of glaze painting, for instance — or else make the content more personal and surprising.

Sometimes, Romero’s depictions of everyday life remind me of Danielle De Jesus’ paintings of Puerto Rican communities in New York City’s rapidly gentrifying Bushwick neighborhood. De Jesus is less invested in Renaissance-era compositional structures and mythological elements than Romero is, but her subject matter — everyday life among an underrepresented Latinx subculture — is similar, as is her painting technique.

I didn’t mention until now that this is Romero’s first solo exhibition, or that he was born into a New Mexican farming family and considers himself a self-taught artist. Those facts should not overshadow what he has accomplished artistically in this show, although they do make it all the more impressive. His title — “¿Yo Soy!” (“I Am?!”) — is perfect for a debut exhibition, simultaneously questioning and affirming his own artistic identity. If this is who Romero is now, I can’t wait to see who he becomes.

Eric Romero impresses in debut at Blue Rain Gallery