Artist Ramiro Gomez takes images of the good life, and then sketches in the invisible domestic workers who make the good life possible. Recently he spoke about his work with Kinsey Sullivan of Policy Mic.
Kinsey Sullivan: Your paintings feature modifications of famous art and familiar advertisements. Why are those images important to the socio-political message of your work?
Ramiro Gomez: Those images are important because they create a reaction within me. That reaction is the first step in my artistic process. I re-appropriate the advertisements with an intention to interrupt the underlying sales pitch. In the case of these luxury magazines, they consciously present an ideal environment unconsciously devoid of the people tasked with maintaining those environments.
While I worked as a nanny, I realized the luxurious image of the Hollywood Hills was far different from the reality. I want to respond to these advertisements to bring a consciousness based on my experience. By painting directly on the surface, I feel empowered to bring out a truth I feel. The modifications I make with acrylic paint change the original strategy of the magazine advertisement … My motive is to create empathy with the figure’s labor and intervene in the bourgeois spaces that shape the seemingly endless desire for material interests at their expense.
Be sure to visit Policy Mic to see the rest of Gomez’s images.