Domestic scenes : the art of Ramiro Gomez / Lawrence Weschler ; afterword by Cris Scorza ; editor Eric Himmel ; designer Devin Grosz.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Award-winning author Lawrence Weschler's book on the young Mexican American artist Ramiro Gomez explores questions of social equity and the chasms between cultures and classes in America.

Gomez, born in 1986 in San Bernardino, California, to undocumented Mexican immigrant parents, bridges the divide between the affluent wealthy and their usually invisible domestic help--the nannies, gardeners, housecleaners, and others who make their lifestyles possible--by inserting images of these workers into sly pastiches of iconic David Hockney paintings, subtly doctoring glossy magazine ads, and subversively slotting life-size painted cardboard cutouts into real-life situations.

Domestic Scenes engages with Gomez and his work, offering an inspiring vision of the purposes and possibilities of art.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Contemporary Los Angeles painter Ramiro Gomez began to attract attention a few years ago with his arresting pastiches of works by famous artists such as David Hockney, wherein he replaces familiar elements-such as the splash in Hockney's A Bigger Splash-with Latino domestic workers silently toiling. Not yet 30, Gomez has also made a splash of his own with impromptu installations of painted cardboard cutouts depicting faceless gardeners and other laborers tending the hedges and lawns of L.A.'s one-percenters. These painted trompe l'oeil compellingly call attention to the limbolike status of undocumented persons in America, while emphasizing the anonymity and invisibility that cling to them. Other works contain similarly blurred figures inserted into glossy, upscale magazine images: "domestics" who are a part of a family yet fundamentally alienated. On display here is some intensely thoughtful, quietly provocative, and compositionally brilliant art. Former New Yorker writer Weschler (Everything That Rises) introduces Gomez with an engaging account of befriending him and his Jalisco-born -parents, and outlining the growth of his sensibility and inspirations going back to the days Gomez himself worked as a nanny for wealthy Anglos. VERDICT With work that's direct and immediate, Gomez is a young artist to watch, deserving of this appreciation.-Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.