The primary focus of my work is on representations of domestic and physical labor. Through the use of painting, sculpture, and assemblage, I seek to portray figuratively the people who maintain the built environment to record their valuable contributions to society. As a Trans Latina daughter of Mexican Immigrants who have now become U.S. Citizens, the intersectional issues inherent to my work address notions of ephemerality, classist and racial divides, and other social inequalities.

Jay Lynn Gomez (she/hers) was born in 1986 in San Bernardino, California to undocumented Mexican immigrant parents who have since become US citizens. She briefly attended the California Institute for the Arts before leaving to take work as a live-in nanny with a West Hollywood family, an experience that did much to inform her subsequent artistic practice. Gomez’s work is known for addressing issues of immigration and making visible the “invisible” labor forces that keep the pools, homes, and gardens of Los Angeles in such pristine condition.

In 2013 Gomez had her first solo exhibition at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, and was also awarded with a residency to install a mural in West Hollywood Park, a project titled “The Caretakers”, which remains on view. In 2014 Gomez had her solo gallery debut at Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles, and went on to show widely across North America including the 2017 Whitney Biennial as part of Rafa Esparza’s “Figure Ground: Beyond the White Field” installation. Her work was also included in three of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibitions – “Home—So Different, So Appealing” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the MFA Houston, a joint show, “In West Hollywood” at the West Hollywood Library with her partner, David Feldman, and the Chapman University exhibition “My Barrio: Emigdio Vasquez and Chicana/o Identity in Orange County.” In 2017 Gomez was featured in “The Sweat Of Their Faces” at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. Gomez’s work has been covered in the Atlantic, the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Artforum, Hyperallergic, Huffington Post, and CNN among others.  Gomez lives and works in West Hollywood, California and is represented by Charlie James Gallery (LA) and PPOW (NY).