“On Melrose” by Ramiro Gomez

@ Charlie James Gallery, China Town, Los Angeles
Until May 28th, 2016

An exhibition of LA artist Ramiro Gomez is always a “must be seen”. Charlie James’eye was sharp enough to detect  the potential of the young artist when he mounted his first solo show at the gallery in 2014. Then things never stopped for both. In 2015 Gomez exhibited at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, the Chicago Humanities Festival, and again at Charlie James Gallery.

No doubt Gomez has “things” to say. The core of his work is the importance of immigrant people who make the dirty jobs, who work three or four jobs at a time, those people who work so hard to give to their children a good life. Those people make California and extensively America stands still. Those people/helpers are either your gardener, your pool guy, your house keeper, or your nanny. And Nanny is a role Gomez knows very well because he left the art school and happened to be a nanny in order to have a decent life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The artist works fast. After a successful series of cover magazines on which he painted the helpers in action (read other articles),
After diverse installations of “his life-size people” painted and cut out in cardboard,
After some brilliant paintings taken from David Hockney on which he switched the main character with domestic guys (see images above)

Gomez is now presenting a series of new paintings of his own. The large canvases presented in the first room really steel the show. They still have the feel of Hockney’s paintings but the artists insert his own story to it.

 

 

Upstairs another discovery is that canvas thrown on a frame which let us think the artist is going to some other very interesting directions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Book on Ramiro Gomez titled Domestic Scenes by Lawrence Weschler’s: “The Art of Ramiro Gomez (Abrams)” is available at the gallery