Raúl Romero
My work uses sound as a physical material and translates psychoacoustic phenomenon into gestural scenarios. Intercommunication among us and our environment sits at the root of my practice. I see sound as a multiplex medium where language, data, and music takes form to create sonic experiences.
Recently I have been making objects that cause me to consider different approaches surrounding the idea of “connections,” from cultural histories to satellite dishes to ecologies.These interests stem from my early life traveling between rural Florida and Puerto Rico where on the edges of rapid suburban growth to overgrown jungles, and Arecibo’s Space Observatory provided me a place to wander, skateboard and play music.
In my work, I return to this play among industrial, pastoral and recreational spaces, as they overlap, reference, and replace one another. Drums become anthropomorphic plant creatures, producing unintelligible sound to human hearing. Makeshift animations on found footage of Tito Puente performances echo 8mm footage my grandfather recorded during a 1960s Puerto Rican Day Parade in Manhattan.Technological elements also intersect, reference, and replace one another. Resourcing and combining different mediums and materials, from analog to digital, is a primary aspect of my work. This reflects my concerns about fostering conversations through time, the power of objects, images, language and the possibility of hidden worlds within and beyond our assumed realities.
Raúl José Romero is originally from Tampa, FL and now lives in West Philadelphia. He graduated from Yale University School of Art with an MFA in Sculpture, 2018 and earned a B.A. in Communication from the University of South Florida. He currently works at the University of the Arts with the position of Film Coordinator and Lecturer.
Raúl has exhibited at the Land Gallery Collective, Philadelphia, PA, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT, The Kitchen in New York City, NY. The Denver Contemporary Art Museum in Denver, CO, Transformer Gallery in Washington D.C., Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art in Wilmington, DE, The Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa, Florida, The Tampa Museum of Art in Tampa, FL and The Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, Fl. He was also awarded The William and Nancy Oliver Gallery Prize by Anne Pasternak for the 32nd Annual Juried Art Exhibition at The Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa, FL.
