L.a.'s Graffiti Towers Become Miniaturized Symbols Of Waste And Neglect In Sayre Gomez's Arresting Gallery Show

Oceanwide Plaza was expected to beryllium a trio of gleaming, high-rise mixed-use towers successful nan bosom of downtown Los Angeles. Instead, their unfinished carcasses were abandoned erstwhile nan developer ran retired of money for nan $1-billion luxury build successful 2019; they now guidelines arsenic a ruin of capitalist ambition, and an unintentionally spectacular canvas for daring acts of graffiti. An creator couldn’t person dreamed up a amended monument to nan hubris of overheated improvement successful a metropolis wherever truthful galore stay unhoused.

Accordingly, L.A. creator Sayre Gomez has built an incredibly religious standard exemplary of nan towers, now connected position done March 1 successful his exhibition, “Precious Moments,” astatine David Kordansky Gallery. Created from imagery of nan existent towers captured via drone, nan sculpture is complete 8 feet gangly and amazingly accurate, signaling nan specifications of each individual activity of graffiti, nan textures of actual and iron, and nan building debris near haphazardly astir nan site. Gomez’s attraction to recreating these nuances not only provides views of nan towers that can’t beryllium seen from nan thoroughfare but asks visitors to salary attraction to nan waste, neglect and thwarted anticipation they symbolize successful our municipality core.

The activity tin beryllium compared to Chris Burden’s erector-set sculptures, but pinch very different ends. Burden’s “Metropolis II,” perennially connected position astatine Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is simply a dizzying, looping way for artifact cars that zoom betwixt shiny skyscrapers. It provokes wonderment astatine nan density and dynamism of a imagination city. Gomez’s “Oceanwide Plaza,” by contrast, depicts thing existent and rather dystopian. The sculpture highlights nan hollowing retired of a dream of unbridled maturation arsenic it happens, successful existent time, successful our city.

It whitethorn beryllium a serendipitous snapshot. Earlier this month, nan metropolis of L.A. struck a bankruptcy exit woody that resolves creditor disputes and opens up nan anticipation of a sale, paving nan measurement for change. Gomez’s sculpture frankincense becomes an important grounds of a precious moment: 1 successful which nan waste of greed were laid bare for each to see.

Sayre Gomez, “Ice Cream Groceries,” 2025, acrylic connected canvas, 50 x 72 inches.

(Sayre Gomez / David Kordansky Gallery)

What nan exemplary can’t seizure is nan measurement nan graffiti tags connected nan towers often guidelines out, arsenic if emblazoned against nan L.A. sky. Surely, penning one’s sanction amid nan clouds is simply a gleeful exploitation of nan buildings’ arrested progress, laying declare to 1 of nan fewer spaces wherever quality and nan metropolis reliably meet. Gomez takes up this taxable successful his photorealistic paintings, which often characteristic melodramatic skies juxtaposed pinch decaying municipality signs. “Ice Cream Groceries” depicts a tender, glowing sunset that would beryllium correct astatine location successful a recreation mag aliases a belief pamphlet, isolated from that it’s interrupted by nan hulking framework of a busted market shop sign. In “Vaccine Flag,” a vertical banner arcs gracefully crossed a soft gradient of L.A. haze, but nan banner’s cloth is truthful tattered and decayed that its advertisement for vaccines is hardly legible. The coating is some a beautiful creation and a remark connected nan erosion of nationalist spot successful science.

Sayre Gomez, “Vaccine Flag,” 2025, acrylic connected canvas, 84 x 60 inches.

(Sayre Gomez / David Kordansky Gallery)

Such images impulse an ironic mentation of nan show’s title, “Precious Moments,” which refers to a statement of collectible, often Christian-themed figurines that picture cute, mostly achromatic children pinch doe eyes and oversized heads. Usually engaged successful anodyne activities, they coming idealized versions of childhood: afloat of stereotypical sweetness, innocence and light. Perched successful nan rafters of 1 assemblage are 2 ample dolls successful nan style of these figurines. Representing Gomez’s children, they evoke thing person to a parent’s reality: lovable kids, grungy and soiled. As “Oceanwide Plaza” subverts nan imagination of nan miniature, nan dolls do nan aforesaid for nan collectible figurine, asking what makes a infinitesimal “precious.”

The accumulation besides includes murals featuring acquainted puerility imagery: One is an illustration of an tremendous postulation mishap by children’s book writer Richard Scarry. The cacophonous pileup of cars and trucks driven by a wide assortment of animals feels for illustration a metaphor for our hopelessly polarized, chaotic and heedless society. This is what group do each day! While Scarry’s books coming specified catastrophes pinch agleam colors and bully humor, Gomez undermines this cheer by superimposing connected nan mural a astir all-black coating of a desolate shelter encampment successful beforehand of a location destroyed by nan Eaton fire. The acheronian underbelly of chaos.

Some of nan strongest useful successful nan show are paintings of windows, which picture astatine slightest 3 spaces: what’s down nan glass, nan aboveground of nan solid marked pinch stickers aliases signs, and a reflection of nan outdoors. These images consciousness for illustration small worlds pressed up against nan aboveground of each painting, akin to nan ubiquitous screens — phones, TVs, computers — that routinely flatten our reality. “Apartment Window” is astir abstract, sandwiching a constellation of peeling, sun-bleached animation stickers betwixt a reflected sunset and nan stripes of vertical blinds. It’s a mysterious image, suggesting nan waning of puerility joy. “Bay Window” is much disturbing, backing its sunset and cheery children’s stickers pinch crumpled brownish drapes and a jumble of pill bottles. Harsh realities — successful this case, illness and addiction — don’t often enactment down nan curtain.

Sayre Gomez, “Vertigo,” 2025, acrylic connected canvas, 96 x 144 inches.

(Sayre Gomez / David Kordansky Gallery)

I was somewhat disappointed to study that Gomez’s paintings are not based connected spontaneous discoveries but connected composites of photos he’s taken astir nan city. The images are purposefully composed, but why overgarment them? Why not make large printouts of nan integer collages and telephone it a day? Gomez has near astatine slightest 1 clue. In nan coating “Vertigo,” an image of a car that personification is intelligibly surviving successful appears successful beforehand of a building topped by a ample advertisement pinch a sexy, recumbent woman. Looking closely, I spied a bladed achromatic outline betwixt nan car and nan building, a sliver of nan car’s original background. By including this artifact of his integer process, Gomez acknowledges that nan painting’s taxable is not reality arsenic knowledgeable connected nan streets of nan city, but a constructed proposition. By turning specified propositions into paintings, he converts slippery integer imagery into thing lasting and tangible. His precious moments are not memories of an idealized past, nor projections of a tantalizing dream, but interventions successful our analyzable coming that uncover beautiful and unsettling layers.