Latino Street Artist Sparks Conversation About Labor in Beverly Hills

A 25-year old Mexican American artist is forcing drivers in Beverly Hills to think about it's workforce with art.

By Jorge Rivas May 09, 2012

The scenes are familiar to Angelenos driving through Beverly Hills. Latina domestic workers of every age group waiting at bus stops and men attending gardens. Artist Ramiro Gomez says he wants people to stop and think about the labor force that takes care of the things we value the most: our families and our homes.

A carboard cutout of a gardener sits on Sunset Blvd. in Beverly Hills. (Photo: Jorge Rivas)

The 25-year-old artist who makes a living as a male nanny* by day has been placing hand-painted cardboard cut outs of workers in and around Beverly Hills. He’s left cardboard figures of housekeepers waiting at bus stops, men watering gardens, trimming hedges and even cut outs of a man with a leaf blower.

"I like that when people see my cardboard cut outs of real humans they stop and say ‘what is that’ and realize that what their seeing is a cardboard version of a housekeeper or gardener that they’ve just been driving past," Gomez told Colorlines.com.

Gomez paints on cardboard he sources from a Best Buy and Target store dumpster at the edge of West Hollywood. He grew up about 65-miles east in a county called San Bernardino. He attended community college before transferring to the art school CalArts but says he was dissatisfied with his program and left before graduating.