Jay Lynn Gomez
Jay Lynn Gomez
Untitled, 2023
acrylic on paper
15 x 12 3/8 x 1 5/8 ins.
38.1 x 31.4 x 4.1 cm
Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way explores contemporary Latinx artists’ innovations and interventions within established traditions of painting, inviting discussion on a variety of themes and revealing the diversity and expansiveness present within the field. The fifty-eight artists in the exhibition—and those in the Latinx field more broadly—encourage us to interrogate the continued relevance of boundaries, from political borders to disciplinary confines. This exhibition therefore celebrates artists whose expressions are first and foremost personal and subjective, but whose heterogeneous and culturally specific interventions enrich one another and the history of American and contemporary art, two fields from which such artists have been historically excluded. Inspired by former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “[Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way],” the show celebrates abundance and presents a vision of Latinx art that is, like the diaspora itself, infinitely complex.
Guadalupe Maravilla
Pupusa Retablo, 2023
oil on tin, cotton and glue mixture on wood
100 x 76 x 22 ins.
The show’s intergenerational and regionally broad dialogue is reflected in seven thematic groupings: (New) Histories, offering new perspectives on personal, cultural, and global histories; Bodies & Figures, representations of and by marginalized people, considering the importance of the body, and who is or isn’t seen in an image; Identity/Place, a consideration of how identity and place shape each other with a diasporic lens; Land/tierra, varied approaches to land and the built environment, from the material to the imaginary; Community, highlighting various communities—artistic, blood, and chosen—and their importance to populations within the diaspora; Pinturx, contemporary Latinx approaches to traditional painting genres like still life and portraiture; and Abstractions, exploring centuries-long Indigenous and European abstract traditions still in use by artists today.
Allowing for cacophony and heterogeneity in its narratives, the exhibition takes its cues from the artists themselves, who are actively cultivating the landscape of contemporary painting as visitors will experience it in the museum. Rather than telling a finished story, as survey exhibitions often do, this exhibition gives audiences a peek into this vibrant and lively active network.
Born in San Bernardino, California to undocumented Mexican immigrants who have since become US citizens, Jay Lynn Gomez (b. 1986; formerly Ramiro Gomez) briefly attended the California Institute for the Arts before leaving to work as a live-in nanny with a West Hollywood family. Witnessing the immigrant labor force that works to maintain the lifestyle of America’s wealthiest classes, Gomez’s artistic practice is founded upon making the “invisible” visible. By placing cardboard cut-outs of these domestic workers streetside in front of gilded mansions, her work confronted all walks of life, establishing a practice that can shared and taken by all. Imbedding herself with the trans community, she has shifted from anonymity and transience to direct portrayals of herself and fellow queer individuals, defiantly exuberant in the face of social and economic plight. In 2016, Gomez was the subject of Domestic Scenes – The Art of Ramiro Gomez, a monograph by Lawrence Weschler, published by Abrams. Gomez has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the University of Michigan, Institute for the Humanities, and the West Hollywood Public Library, 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 Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; and the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; 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 2024, Gomez held her second solo exhibition with P·P·O·W and was on view in the group show Day Jobs at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, California, CA. Her solo exhibition, Butterfly Dream, was on view at Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, in Spring 2025.
Combining sculpture, painting, performative acts, and installation, Guadalupe Maravilla (b. 1976) grounds his transdisciplinary practice in activism and healing. Engaging a wide variety of visual cultures, Maravilla’s work is autobiographical, referencing his unaccompanied migration to the United States due to the Salvadoran Civil War. Across all media, Maravilla explores how the systemic abuse of immigrants physically manifests in the body, reflecting on his own battle with cancer. Maravilla received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts and his MFA from Hunter College in New York. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Tate, London, UK; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, among others. He has presented solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, NY; P·P·O·W, New York, NY; REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL, among others. Guadalupe Maravilla: Mariposa Relámpago, a solo exhibition featuring a newly commissioned immersive installation at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston’s Watershed, was on view from May 25 - September 4, 2023 before touring to Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX, November 3, 2023 - March 30, 2024, and the Contemporary Austin, Austin, TX, April 4 - November 4, 2024. Maravilla presented his second solo exhibition at P·P·O·W, Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana, in Spring 2024. His work will be featured in a forthcoming group exhibition at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, as well as a two-person exhibition with Emery Blagdon (1907–1986) at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI, in 2026. Maravilla has been invited to the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia by Koyo Kouoh, opening May 9.
Photo by Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
Photo by Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
Photo by Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
Photo by Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
The group exhibition “Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way" explores how contemporary Latinx artists have reshaped and subverted traditional painting genres in recent years.
The impressive ensemble is both a survey of contemporary Latinx painting and a lively dialogue between a spectrum of artists with diverse backgrounds, experiences, identities, languages, and creative mediums.
