Jay Lynn Gomez and Ezrha Jean Black In Conversation

Jay Lynn Gomez’s Butterfly Dream is an exhibition of paintings and mixed-media installations that locate Gomez’s artistic practice within the context of her transition. The exhibition asks: what does it mean to exist in this new identity, instead of constantly striving to realize it? Through a series of dreamlike paintings, Gomez makes clear that community and self-acceptance are central. Butterfly Dream documents the people and places that make up the community of trans women Gomez has found in Los Angeles, all captured in her signature documentary style. The exhibition also tackles the concerns of the artist’s past work, including issues of labor and immigration, now through a trans lens. Butterfly Dream is the artist’s fifth show with the gallery, and her first exhibition post-transition mounted in Los Angeles.

Jay Lynn Gomez was born in 1986 in San Bernardino, California to undocumented Mexican immigrant parents who have since become US citizens. Gomez has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the University of Michigan, Institute for the Humanities, Ann Arbor, MI; Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and the West Hollywood Public Library, West Hollywood, CA as part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; the Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA; the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University, Portland, OR; and the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA; among others. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; and the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA; among others. In 2016, was the subject of Domestic Scenes – The Art of Ramiro Gomez, a monograph by Lawrence Weschler, published by Abrams.

Ezrha Jean Black is a writer and critic. A longtime ARTILLERY stalwart, she is currently writing and researching a novel based on a historical subject, and revising film and theatrical scripts accumulated over the last decade. She is still pitching magazine (print and on-line) features, but only if insistently prodded. She works principally in Los Angeles, where she lives with her feline son, Smokey (but will travel just about anywhere for a suitcaseful of cash).