P·P·O·W is pleased to present Jay Lynn Gomez, Under Construction, the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Formerly known as Ramiro Gomez, this is the artist’s first major presentation since her transition from male to female and since moving from Los Angeles, CA where she was born and raised, to Boston, MA, which she now calls home. In Under Construction, the past and the present blend within a lavender dreamlike gauze. Continuing to use her photography practice as source images, Gomez creates a new series of paintings and mixed media works that depict moments of respite, reflection, and fantasy. Combining personal memories and the contemporary lived experiences of herself and her trans sisters, Gomez portrays the complicated emotional, physical, and psychological work of reinvention.
Always responding to her surrounding environment, Under Construction bridges persistent themes of Ramiro’s practice, such as documenting the often-overlooked immigrant labor force that constructs and maintains America’s largest metropolises, with the current concerns of Jay Lynn, who has become newly imbedded within local communities of trans women who thrive and live with exuberance in the face of enormous social, political, and economical odds. Alongside the paintings and installations, Gomez will also present a new series of painted hormone medication box covers. While some depict fleeting scenes of childhood memories and quotidian moments from daily life, others are left abstract, their expressive purple brushstrokes reminiscent of both turbulent landscapes and bruised flesh. In all of them, Gomez’s former name is visible on the prescription label.
Jay Lynn Gomez was born in 1986 in San Bernardino, California to undocumented Mexican immigrant parents who have since become US citizens. Gomez has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the University of Michigan, Institute for the Humanities, Ann Arbor, MI; Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and the West Hollywood Public Library, West Hollywood, CA as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA; the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University, Portland, OR; and the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA; among others. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; and the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA; among others. In 2016, was the subject of Domestic Scenes – The Art of Ramiro Gomez, a monograph by Lawrence Weschler, published by Abrams.
Who is Jay Lynn Gomez? That question animates the artist’s current exhibition at P·P·O·W in New York, and the answer is a bit complicated, ever evolving.
Once a nanny for a wealthy Beverly Hills family, Jay Lynn Gomez lived alongside celebrities, often surrounded by paparazzi who would crop her and her colleagues out of their photos.