David Jonathan Romero

david who?

David Jonathan Romero (b. 1984 Michoacan, Mexico), a.k.a. Monsieur Butterfly or Lord Mariposa, is a filmmaker, painter and photographer, with a base in Montreal and Mexico City. Romero’s artistic practice includes films, videos, paintings, drawings, design, installations, performances and sculptures.

Romero was raised near the Monarch Butterfly Reserve and learned aerial photography and film development from 13 years of age. At 16 years old, Romero presented his first fashion-performance titled: Alquimia Primavera Oscura Fiesta-Desfile-Performance in the city of Uruapan, Michoacan. In 2001, Romero migrated to Montreal, where he completed a double B.F.A in Film Production and Photography at Concordia University between 2002-2009. Consequently, Romero started to work as a research assistant and color printing technician at Hexagram-Concordia-Center for Research Creation in Media Arts and Technologies, where he collaborated with Canadian artists such as Genevieve Cadieux, Pierre Lapointe and Grimes. 

Romero’s portrait Emmis, 2009, from the Poppers series was launched into space on the shuttle Discovery’s STS-133 as part of the project Face in Space by NASA; also in 2009, Romero was invited to participate in the Canadian Heritage Information Network Project (CHIN Project). In 2012 Romero was granted the In-Camera Special Effect Award by Concordia University; and in 2013, Romero participated in La Nuit Blanche à Montréal with a large-scale photo installation in downtown Montreal’s metro station Square Victoria for the Festival Art Souterrain 2013. 

Romero’s paintings and photographs have been exhibited and auctioned at the Museum of Modern Art of Mexico as part of their biggest fundraiser event to fight AIDS impulsed by Mexico Vivo. In 2016 Romero’s butterfly installation was exhibited in the Mexican Institute of San Antonio, in the US, as part of a group show impulsed by the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs. In 2017, a painting by Romero was included in the 30th anniversary of the Festival de la Diversidad Sexual at Centro Cultural José Martí, in Mexico City.

When the monarch butterfly was added to the endangered of extinction list in 2012, Romero started to document the monarch butterfly migration from Canada to Mexico and back. And in 2015, Romero co-founded an international NGO called Todos Somos Mariposas (We are all butterflies), which promotes sustainability and protects biodiversity with projects that collide art and science, as illustrated in this documentary produced by CBC Arts in 2020. In 2016, Romero drove from Mexico City to Houston Texas following the monarch butterflies trajectory north, and created a short documentary titled Winter: We are all Interconnected, which was released on the screens of the public transportation system of Mexico City to celebrate Earth Day, reaching over 5 million passengers.

Romero is currently enrolled in the Psychology department at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, in order to better understand and further research two central neurological processes: artistic inspiration and orgasms in the human brain.

in 2021 Romero created CICESA (Centro de Investigación de la Conciencia y Estudios de la Sabiduría Ancestral) as part of the I WANT TO BELIEVE programme at the University of the Underground.