Ramiro Gomez is a Los Angeles-based artist widely recognized for his re-imaginings of David Hockney’s iconic pool paintings as well as other classic images that give us “the look” of Southern California. Gardeners, pool cleaners, housekeepers, nannies—or, faceless, dark-skinned, disposable bodies that sustain cities and luxurious lifestyles—are at the front and center of Gomez’s drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations. All of Gomez’s Latino, Latina, Latinx subjects key into his ongoing artistic project of making labor and hierarchies visible. His visuality and cultural interruptions illustrate what the New York Times dubbed as “Domestic Disturbances”—everyday, familiar scenes that cast light on “questions of the relative worth and value of human lives.” Gomez’s work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery; the 2017 Whitney Biennial; Art Basel Miami Beach; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); and the Denver Art Museum (DAM), among many other venues. A volume on his work, Domestic Scenes: The Art of Ramiro Gomez, was published by Abrams Books in 2016.
For additional coverage on Gomez, please consult:
• Susan Stamberg, NPR, “Gardens Don’t Tend Themselves: Portraits of the People Behind LA’s Luxury” (11 April 2016)
• Katharine Schwab, The Atlantic, “Documenting Los Angeles’s Near-Invisible Workers” (20 April 2016)
• Carolina Miranda, Los Angeles Times, “From Nanny to International Art Star: Ramiro Gomez on How His Paintings Reveal the Labor that Makes California Cool Possible” (4 May 2016)
• Janelle Zara, The Guardian, “Hacking Hockney: The Mexican American Painter Bringing Latino Culture into Art” (22 August 2017)
• Samanta Helou Hernandez, KCET (PBS SoCal), ”’Bridges in a Time of Walls’ Brings Chicano Art to Mexico City” (22 October 2018)
