Sayre Gomez
Photo: Jason Roberts Dorbin
Sayre Gomez
United States born 1982
Level 2
NGV International
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PROJECT
Sayre Gomez’s hyperrealist paintings explore the tenuous relationship between our everyday surroundings and increasingly manipulated digital culture. Everything must go, (1) depicts a run-down shop window covered with the remnants of old advertisements, past remains of spectacle and newness. Gomez presents Los Angeles as a site of urban decay and commercial nostalgia, distinct from the romanticised and mythologised images often seen in representations of the city. His work is semi-fictionalised, employing a diverse set of techniques, including trompe l’oeil (deceive the eye), airbrushing and Hollywood set-painting methods. In Everything must go, (1), realistic reflections of passing cars complicate the painting’s surface and act as reminders of the urban setting.
ABOUT
Sayre Gomez creates semi-fictionalised and photorealistic paintings, known as X-Scapes. Based in Los Angeles, he is inspired by the city to paint urban landscapes featuring housing, road signs and billboards. Gomez holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Gomez’s works are held in permanent collections including the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Broad, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Purchased with funds donated by July Cao, 2022