Sayre Gomez

Since moving from his native Chicago to Los Angeles to study at CalArts in 2006, Sayre Gomez Sayre Gomez (born 1982) has made the urban landscape of the Californian megalopolis the focus of his photorealistic and semi-fictionalized work, which mainly comprises painting, but also sculpture, installation, and video work. Taking cues from his surroundings, he employs the same techniques used to paint Hollywood sets such as trompe-l'oeil, airbrushing, and stenciling. The vibrating effect of the simultaneous hyper-focused and purposefully blurred application on his highly detailed canvases conjures an emotional way of seeing otherwise the quintessential scenes and motifs of Los Angeles: strip malls filled with the signage of commercial businesses, advertising billboards, street signs, nail salons, fences, shopping carts, and cartoon figures. The flawless execution and even luminescence of the canvases, along with shifts between sharp focus and less well-defined forms, create mesmerizing images that capture the essence of the landscape he draws from, and which can be seen as painterly reflections on the digital flattening and blurring of life and culture through screen-based technology, addressing issues such as nostalgia, authenticity, and simulation.