Highlights
- Phoenix Art Museum premieres Cara Romero's 'Coyote Appears at Muhaḍagĭ Doʼag (Greasy Mountain)' on June 5, 2026, during First Friday.
- The large-scale triptych, Romero's first, was shot at South Mountain Park and Preserve and enters the museum's permanent collection.
- Romero's concurrent solo exhibition, 'Panûpünüwügai (Living Light),' featuring 60 photographs, runs at PhxArt through June 28.
- The new commission marks Romero's return to black-and-white film after nearly two decades of working digitally, per museum director Jeremy Mikolajczak.
Phoenix Art Museum adds a new permanent-collection work this week: a large-scale triptych by Chemehuevi contemporary photographer Cara Romero, unveiled during First Friday on June 5, 2026.
The work, titled Coyote Appears at Muhaḍagĭ Doʼag (Greasy Mountain), was created at South Mountain Park and Preserve in Phoenix. It depicts Dre Noline, who is both San Carlos Apache and Salt River Pima-Maricopa, reclining within the landscape and embodying the human connection to Coyote and all animals. Romero made the Coyote mask herself and collaborated with fiber artist Leah Mata-Fragua to create the model's shell necklace. The model also wears a Pima cotton dress and Pima sandals.
The commission is Romero's first triptych and, according to museum director and CEO Jeremy Mikolajczak, represents a return to black-and-white film after nearly two decades of working digitally. Mikolajczak, who holds the Sybil Harrington Director title, said the work "centers Indigenous materials, perspectives, and practices in a way that feels urgent and timeless."
Romero, whose homelands are on the Chemehuevi Valley Indian Reservation, described the photograph as "a gentle offering and reminder of our shared connection to our landscape," noting that it considers flora and fauna as sentient beings.
The triptych is now on view on the first floor of the museum's Katz Wing for Modern Art. It joins Romero's concurrent solo exhibition, Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light), organized by the Hood Museum at Dartmouth, which occupies the second floor of the same wing and runs through June 28, 2026. That exhibition features 60 large-scale photographs spanning a decade.
Romero's work is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Guggenheim Museum, among other public and private collections.
The June 5 First Friday unveiling at PhxArt, located in Phoenix's Central Corridor, is open to the public.
Where to find them
- Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) · cararomero.com
Sources
Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.
- phxart.org retrieved 03/06/2026 21:36
- Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) (official site) retrieved 03/06/2026 21:36
Authored by The Scottsdale Signal. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 03/06/2026 21:36. Every claim traces to a source.
