Ramiro Gomez
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Jay Lynn Gomez (formerly Ramiro Gomez; born 1986) is an American
painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
based in
West Hollywood, California West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. History Most historical writing ...
. Her artwork addresses social justice issues, focusing specifically on topics of immigration, race, and labor. Much of her work highlights the efforts of unseen laborers who maintain landscapes and produce luxury products.


Early life

Born in 1986 in
San Bernardino, California San Bernardino ( ) is a city in and the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a population of 222,101 in the 2020 census, making it the List of ...
, Jay Lynn Gomez is the child of two formerly-undocumented Mexican immigrants. Gomez adopted the nickname "Jay" in her childhood to distinguish herself from her father, Ramiro Gomez Sr. Jay's parents, hailing from different parts of the Mexican countryside (west of
Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...
and south of
Guadalajara Guadalajara ( ; ) is the capital and the most populous city in the western Mexican List of states of Mexico, state of Jalisco, as well as the most densely populated municipality in Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population ...
), left for the United States in the 1970s. Her mother and father arrived in California separately without legal documentation. They married one year before Jay's birth in 1985, and later became US citizens following the births of their second daughter. Gomez spent her childhood admiring the tireless work of her mother, Maria Elena, a school custodian, and her father Ramiro Sr., a
Costco Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2021, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world, and as of August 2024, Cos ...
truck driver. While her parents worked, Gomez's grandmother took care of her and her sisters, assuming a vital role in her upbringing and providing her with unwavering support as she came to terms with her sexuality. Throughout her childhood, Gomez grappled with her sexual identity, identifying at the time as male and understanding that her attraction to other boys was disapproved of by her traditional Mexican family. Following the initial shock, her family came to support her homosexuality. Shortly after graduating from high school, Gomez met a photographer and filmmaker David Feldman. The pair are now married and live in West Hollywood. Feldman plays a critical role in the documentation and preservation process of Gomez's work. Before her cardboard cutouts are either stolen, thrown out, or destroyed, Feldman photographs the artwork in its intended position and location. These images are then hung in Charlie James Gallery exhibitions, as well as others nationwide. In late March 2021, Gomez posted on Instagram that she is a trans woman. In the post, she expressed gratitude to friends and family for their support.


Education and early career

Throughout her childhood, Gomez found school assignments and classes tedious. Nevertheless, she excelled in the art studio, eventually resulting in a partial scholarship to the
California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...
Due to a combination of financial struggles and the passing of her grandmother, Gomez dropped out of CalArts after one year. In order to make a living, Gomez secured a job as a private nanny for a Los Angeles family, which she began in September 2009. She held this job for two years and it provided her with the stability she had lacked previously. Not only did it provide a steady income and a reliable living situation, but it also allowed Gomez to work alongside people whose backgrounds resembled hers, reminding her of her family's Latino immigrant roots. During these two years when Gomez cared for the family's children, she began her first artistic series, ''Domestic Scenes'', which documented her daily experiences and observations of the other workers in the home and the neighborhood. As the children napped, Gomez would retreat to her room so that she could paint loose representations of her fellow workers, depicting male workers in their outdoor sphere tending to the lawn and pool and female housekeepers cleaning the interiors.


Artistic career


Early works

While working as a nanny, Gomez would look at issues of ''Luxe'', '' Dwell, ''
Architectural Digest ''Architectural Digest'' (stylized in all caps) is an American monthly magazine founded in 1920. Its principal subjects are interior design and landscaping, rather than pure external architecture. The magazine is published by Condé Nast ...
'', ''and '' ''Elle Décor'' ''displayed in her employer's home. Upon flipping through the pages, Gomez found the images devoid of the workers who maintained the advertised domestic lifestyle. This realization prompted her to begin her series, Domestic Scenes (2012–present), in which she superimposes domestic workers onto advertisements in high-end magazines to reinsert an image of the Latino community into the public consciousness. Gomez depicts the figures of housekeepers, nannies, and gardeners completing their daily duties in the Chicano Rasquache style, as a way to both, acknowledge and document their lives and labor. Gomez gives each of her workers a Latino name such as Maria, Lupita, or Carmen but renders the figures with loose and rough strokes that blur any identifiable facial features, which writer Katharine Schwab states "reframes the
David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...
paintings and glossy magazine advertisements he takes for inspiration, putting the lives of California’s near-invisible and individually disposable workers front and center." In addition to their names, most of her figures are presented with dark skin and brown hair to fully represent the archetype of a Latino domestic worker. The series acts as a photo study, documenting the figures that advertisements have erased from the narrative. These images earned Gomez recognition within the art world, resulting in her partnership with the California-based art dealer Charlie James Gallery.


Waiting for Checks

In Jay Lynn Gomez's series of “Waiting for Checks (2013-present)” paintings of domestic women working, Gomez's intent is to demonstrate the boundaries of the domestic worker's experience. Through her art, Gomez contributes to providing relevance of domestic labor. She mentions how art pieces can be hanged in a wealthy home and just be seen as a regular painting of art. The message of the art is showing the importance and labor of domestic workers.  In the article by David Brody titled, Painting Labor: Ramiro Gomez's Representations of Domestic Work”, “Yvette Waits for Her Check speaks to the boundaries that delimit the experience of the domestic worker (pg.157).” This is an example that domestic women workers are not allowed to receive their payment until after they do their work because of the high expectations of their boss. Jay Lynn Gomez's art shows the injustice of “class, race, gender and immigration (pg.158).”


My Cousins and My Aunts without my Tío Carlos

Gomez painted this to demonstrate her personal family's struggle after her uncle was deported in 2018. In the painting, “a man-shaped hole in a family portrait marks the spot where a graduate’s father should have been”. Gomez leaves the figures in her portrait faceless, but right next to the graduate is an empty space while the rest of the family is standing next to each other


David Hockney

Gomez has stated that she sees David Hockney as a personal hero and an influence for many of her works, as well as helping her to openly embrace her queerness. Hockney is known for creating idealistic depictions of Los Angeles, California. His modernist style rendered the splendor of Los Angeles residents, homes and pop culture. Gomez sought to revise Hockney's compositions by including the implied characters who work to maintain the depicted beauty as well as to portray dark-skinned workers, diverting the focus of the piece from luxury to labor. Gomez reimagined Hockney's ''
A Bigger Splash ''A Bigger Splash'' is a large pop art painting by British artist David Hockney. Measuring by , it depicts a swimming pool beside a modern house, disturbed by a large splash of water created by an unseen figure who has apparently just jumped ...
'' (1967), with her version, ''No Splash,'' which she completed in 2014. While Gomez's reproduction does not depict Hockney's large splash in the foreground, it does include two faceless workers in the background who clean windows and rake the pool. Gomez's painting is currently in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, San Diego's (MCA San Diego) permanent collection.


Cardboard cutouts

Gomez crosses mediums to cardboard to represent Latino gardeners, custodians, and workers in her series entitled ''Cut-Outs''. In this series, Gomez's main objective was "to slow people down, to have them double-take, to make them take notice and see" the cardboard figures that she placed along the sidewalks, on lawns, and against buildings. Gomez paints loose renderings of people on life-size cardboard cutouts, which she collects from the dumpsters behind a
Best Buy Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was r ...
at the corner of
Santa Monica Boulevard Santa Monica Boulevard is a major west–east thoroughfare in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It runs from Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica near the Pacific Ocean to Sunset Boulevard at Sunset Junction in Los Angeles. It passes t ...
and
La Brea Avenue La Brea Avenue is a prominent north-south thoroughfare in the Los Angeles, California, City of Los Angeles and in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California. La Brea is known for having diverse ethnic communities, and m ...
. While the destinations and arrangements for each figure are carefully thought out and executed, Gomez knows that the cutouts’ lives are short-lived as they are either stolen, thrown out or destroyed. According to Gomez, the disposability of the cardboard figures acts as commentary on the perceived replaceability of domestic and maintenance workers. Gomez's husband, photographer David Feldman, photographs images of the cutouts for exhibitions nationwide. In 2013, the
UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) was founded in 1969 as a hub for multidisciplinary research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). It is one of four ethnic studies centers established at UCLA that year. The center fo ...
at UCLA offered Gomez her first solo exhibition, entitled ''Luxury Interrupted'', to present images of her cutouts. Gomez displays most of her cutouts throughout the lawns, street corners, and playgrounds of
Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...
and
West Hollywood West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. History Most historical writings about West Hollywood be ...
, which she says is intended to force passersby to recognize who maintains the city and cares for its children. In 2012, Gomez planted four cardboard Latino workers on the hedge of actor
George Clooney George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, filmmaker, and philanthropist. Known for his leading man roles on screen in both blockbuster and independent films, Clooney has received numerous accolades, including two Ac ...
’s home prior to a fundraiser event that
President Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. Ob ...
was to attend. One of the figures displayed a sign that read "We are all American". Her intent was to demonstrate the political dimensions of her art by both representing and humanizing her subjects. According to Katharine Schwab, Gomez uses the power and accessibility of street art to force society to recognize who maintains city and cares for its children. Gomez explains that "it was strange; actual humans involved in their labor had become invisible to most people, but the image of a human, there, in the middle of your day, and not at some museum or gallery, but there in the middle of your path, somehow that registered." In 2017,
LACMA The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...
announced the inclusion of Gomez's works from the series, ''Cut-Outs'' (2015), in their permanent collection.


Recent works

In 2017, artist Rafa Esparza invited Gomez to the
Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...
in New York to participate in his exhibition, ''Figure Ground: Beyond the White Field.'' While working at the Whitney, Gomez observed the custodians, security guards, and staff members, documenting images on her phone so that she could later create cardboard cutouts of these subjects. In the week prior to the Biennial, she gifted these subjects with their cardboard representations, giving them recognition for their labor. Also in 2017, Gomez's work was part of the group exhibition, ''Home---So Different, So Appealing,'' at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...
(LACMA). Both the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follo ...
, partnered with LACMA for this exhibition. The exhibit served as part of the
J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. It is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthies ...
’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, an initiative that seeks to promote an appreciation and exploration of Latino and Latin American Art in Los Angeles. In 2024, her work was included in ''Xican-a.o.x. Body,'' an expansive group exhibition at the
Pérez Art Museum Miami Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...
, Florida, showcasing artworks by
Chicano Chicano (masculine form) or Chicana (feminine form) is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans that emerged from the Chicano Movement. In the 1960s, ''Chicano'' was widely reclaimed among Hispanics in the building of a movement toward politic ...
artists from the 1960s to the present day. The show was curated by feminist art historian Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, and curators Marissa Del Toro, and Gilbert Vicario. The exhibition accompanying catalog was published by Chicago University Press.


Exhibitions

Gomez's work has been exhibited at: LACMA, the
Museum of Latin American Art The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) was founded by Dr. Robert Gumbiner in 1996 in Long Beach, California, United States, and serves the greater Los Angeles area. MOLAA is the only museum in the United States dedicated to modern and contemp ...
(MOLAA), the
Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded in 1962 and opened in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of American artists, politicians, scientists ...
, the
Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With an encyclopedic collection of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums betwe ...
, MCA San Diego, MFA Houston, the Torrance Art Museum, the
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art is an art museum that is part of Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. The Nerman Museum is named for donors Jerry and Margaret Nerman. It opened in October 2007, succeeding the college ...
, the
Cornell Fine Arts Museum The Rollins Museum of Art is located on the Winter Park campus of Rollins College and is the only teaching museum in the greater Orlando area. The museum houses more than 5,000 objects ranging from antiquity through contemporary eras, including ...
, New York, the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
, Massachusetts,
Pérez Art Museum Miami Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...
, Florida, and many others. Her story and her work have been discussed in a variety of news outlets, including: ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'', ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...
'', ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', ''
The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazi ...
'', ''
Hyperallergic ''Hyperallergic'' is an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009, the site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful, and radical thinki ...
'', the
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
,
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, and on
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and
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among others.


Awards

Source: * 2014 ''L.A. Weekly'' People * 2014 2013 25 Artists to Watch, ''Artvoices Magazine'' * 2013 100 Green Leaders in Art, ''Poder Magazine''


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gomez, Ramiro 1986 births Living people Painters from Los Angeles American transgender women American transgender artists American LGBTQ painters LGBTQ people from California LGBTQ Hispanic and Latino American people Transgender women artists Transgender painters 21st-century American women painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American LGBTQ people