SAYRE GOMEZ

Early Years

Born in Chicago in 1982, Sayre Gomez studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before completing an MFA at the California Institute of the Arts. Early exposure to city life, including a formative job in a photo lab, shaped his fascination with the overlooked corners and visual language of urban environments. Gomez lives and works in Los Angeles, a city whose contradictions and complexities are central to his work.

Sayre Gomez Artworks

Gomez’s art practice is defined by semi-fictionalised, photorealistic paintings—often called ‘X-scapes’—and sculptural works that draw on the visual vernacular of Los Angeles. He employs techniques ranging from trompe l’oeil and airbrushing to stencilling and methods used in Hollywood set painting, synthesising found images, snapshots, and digital fragments into striking compositions.

Hyperreal Urban Landscapes

Gomez’s paintings frequently depict storefronts, billboards, and architectural details, often focusing on signs of decay, gentrification, and the passage of time. Notable examples include Diamonds and Pearls (2022), which immortalises a nail salon’s neon sign, and The Whole Wide World is a Haunted House (2022), a landscape-oriented painting that shows a dilapidated building against the red-tinged sky.

Renaissance Collection

In his first solo exhibition in Italy, titled Renaissance Collection (2022) at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Gomez explored themes of urban redevelopment through the lens of Los Angeles’s grandly named apartment complexes, referencing the city’s ongoing transformation and the mythos of progress. In paintings such as Da Vinci Staircase (2022), harsh urban structures are juxtaposed with soft, luminous skies.

Sculptures and Installations

Gomez’s practice also includes sculpture, installation, and video, often using motifs such as windows, doors, and barriers to symbolise both possibility and exclusion within the urban landscape.

Exhibitions

Sayre Gomez has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at leading institutions.

Solo Exhibitions

• Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China (2022)
• Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (2022)

Group Exhibitions

• Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands (2025)
• The Broad, Los Angeles (2024)
• The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2024)
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2023)
• Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2019, 2018)

Website and Instagram

Sayre Gomez’s website can be found here and the artist’s Instagram can be found here.

Sayre Gomez FAQs

Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2025