Ramiro Gomez’s Cardboard Cut Outs Make LA Times’ Frontpage

Gomez hopes his works shed light on the unseen laborers who keep homes and lawns and care for youngsters.

By Jorge Rivas Jun 05, 2012

Ramiro Gomez, the 25-year-old street artist who has been placing cardboard cutouts of domestic workers around Beverly Hills, made the cover of the L.A. Times Tuesday. Gomez and his work that seeks to call attention to the affluent neighborhood’s workers was featured on both the front page of the print edition and at the top of[ LATimes.com.](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cardboard-artist-20120605,0,6539876.story) [An excerpt from the LA Times interview:](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cardboard-artist-20120605,0,6539876.story) > For the last eight months, Gomez, an artist from West Hollywood, has made the invisible visible by installing life-size cardboard cutouts of nannies, gardeners, valet workers and housekeepers in Beverly Hills, the Hollywood Hills and other wealthy areas. > > His acrylic paintings appear unexpectedly around the Westside, like pop-ups from a children’s book. Gomez puts them on display to raise provocative questions. > > "We see the beautiful homes. The hedges are trimmed, the gardens are perfect, the children are cared for," Gomez said. "We’ve come to expect it to be this way. But who maintains all this? Who looks after it? And do we treat the workers with the dignity they deserve? Do we stop and notice them?" "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 last month. ](https://colorlines.com/archives/2012/05/latino_street_artist_sparks_conversation_about_labor_in_beverly_hills.html) Learn more about Gomez’ work by watching the video below.