Artist Talk: In Conversation with Gerald Clarke and Cara Romero

Description: Leading artists Gerald Clarke and Cara Romero, working from the perspective of the current day indigenous experience, present their work and discuss what’s needed to develop a lively contemporary indigenous art scene in Southern California.
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Moderated by Bernard Leibov, Founder and Director of BoxoPROJECTS, a residency and programming initiative based in Joshua Tree, CA, and co-founder and co-curator of the Joshua Treenial.
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Gerald Clarke Jr. was born in 1967 in Hemet, California and is an enrolled member of the Cahuilla Band of Indians. He currently lives and works on the Cahuilla Indian reservation located in Southern California. From Gerald’s statement: “I express my Cahuilla perspective as a 21st Century citizen of the world and the passion, pain, and reverence I feel as a contemporary Cahuilla person”. Gerald’s work has been exhibited extensively including his recent solo exhibition at Palm Springs Art Museum. Gerald currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California-Riverside and teaches classes in California indigenous history and culture, contemporary Native American art and related social issues.
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Cara Romero was born in 1977 in Inglewood, CA and 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 experiences from a Native American female perspective. Maintaining a studio in Santa Fe, NM, Romero regularly participates in Native American art fairs and panel discussions,

The NEA Big Read Morongo Basin is presented by Arts Connection. To learn more about the Big Read, visit:www.BigReadMorongoBasin.com