A memorial retrospective exhibition of the art of Janet Stein Romero (1944-2024), “The Nuanced Vernacular of a Visual Polyglot,” opens Saturday, June 7, 2025, from 2-4 p.m. in the art gallery of Kluge Auditorium at the United World College (UWC) in Montezuma, New Mexico. Craig Winston will open the festivities with a classical guitar performance in recital style in the adjacent Dwan Light Sanctuary from 2-2:30 p.m.
The exhibit will be open to the public through July 7, 2025. Visitors interested in accessing the exhibition and the Dwan Light Sanctuary after the opening can do so by checking in at the college’s security station and providing their driver’s license while they enjoy the spaces.
In her work, we see an undeniable fondness for the land, light, and indigenous cultures shared by many artists, but what distinguished Janet’s oeuvres was that she was not simply quoting existing conceptions. Her art-making practice uniquely coalesced the influences of her Jewish immigrant lineage, motherhood, raising a family with the love of her life, who happened to be a native New Mexican, and a network of creatives the two nurtured for decades.
Janet revealed the fantasy realism of the subconscious in colorful multi-media artworks in a manner on par with the wordsmithing authors like Rudolfo Anaya and John Nichols pioneered to plumb the nuanced vernacular of Northern New Mexico. To create a resonant style that is uniquely hers, Romero combined personal iconographic symbols with figurative imagery and pop and visual culture elements. Women and environmental details figure prominently in media ranging from painted glazed ceramics to hand embroidery, drawings, watercolor, monotypes, and painted collages.
Janet Stein Romero (1944-2024) exhibited widely throughout New Mexico during her career: at the Governor’s Gallery, Ernesto Mayans Gallery, Hills Gallery, Citizens’ Committee for Historic Preservation, local grassroots studio tours, and New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU). She was an active and dedicated community arts advocate who taught in the local public schools. She was a visiting visual arts instructor at UWC Montezuma and NMHU Las Vegas during her retirement. She served as the project coordinator and grant writer for the New Mexico Arts Division’s artist-in-residence program, served on the Board of the Capitol Arts Foundation, and along with her family created and hosted for 19 years, the annual El Ancon Outdoor Sculpture Show which became a beacon for emerging and established artists from around the state and across varying disciplines. Each setting revealed the instinctive embrace of reciprocity embedded in Janet’s anima, and evoked a sense of inclusivity and community that profoundly affected all whose lives she touched. They exemplify the upstanding way Janet sought to create and participate in her community’s artistic and social fabric and, along with her art, represent her most enduring legacy.