Sayre Gomez

Sayre Gomez makes paintings and sculptures that present a complicated relationship with the United States. His hyper-realistic paintings of decaying urban architecture are rooted in his life experiences and observations of society. Gomez grew up in Chicago, and went on to study at the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he supported himself by painting advertising billboards and designing T-shirts for brands like Stussy and X-Large. This crossover of art and consumerism had a huge impact on his practice and helped develop concepts that continue to shape his work.

Faded billboards, deserted strip malls and the ubiquitous bright lights of commercial signage are some of the protagonists in Gomez’s paintings, exposing the cracks and inequalities that can be seen in the American landscape. Sayre admits that there is something productive that happens while investigating these problematic images. “I definitely look at California or LA through a certain lens of exoticism. It’s such a weird and interesting place because it’s never easy to decipher. It’s fake and real at the same time.”