Refuting categorization and singularity, Arturo Romo’s practice is as eccentric as it is diverse. Romo undermines established concepts of art and culture by invading them with his own pseudo-science and invented personas. He playfully mixes the spiritual and the secular, history and pop-culture.

Characters such as fictitious urban gurus and mystic collectives weave their way through Romo’s conglomeration of images manifested through installations, photography, drawings, video, performance works, and a web-based sketchbook. Projects have included fake flyers for rock concerts or for homeopathic remedies and rotating storefronts.

Romo is a purveyor of turbulent urban dynamics, capitalizing on the often incongruent overlap of cultures in Los Angeles. By placing seemingly unassuming objects such as trinkets and talismans next to performative video works based in industrial landscapes, Romo challenges the viewer’s understanding of the sacred vs. the mundane nature of our surroundings.

Arturo Romo graduated with a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2002. He currently lives and works in Long Beach. With writer Sesshu Foster, he hosts an online guide to East LA that is rooted in both fact and fiction. Upcoming exhibitions include "Vast Arcade Los Angeles" curated by Rita Gonzalez at LAX/ART in Culver City, California. He is included in this year’s California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach.

Curator Pilar Tompkins-Rivas interviews Romo in Los Angeles in 2006.

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