In late February, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU (JSMA at PSU) invited nationally recognized, contemporary visual artist Jay Lynn Gomez to campus to facilitate a student art-making workshop and participate in the museum’s first “Art in Conversation” event, featuring PSU students and faculty in conversation with contemporary visual artists.
Jay Lynn Gomez (b. 1986, San Bernardino, California) is a mixed media artist featured in JSMA at PSU’s current exhibition Labor of Love. The exhibition aims to expose and highlight labor practices that have been historically and systematically concealed from the public sphere.
Informed by her own experience working as a live-in nanny early in her career, Gomez’s featured artworks explore the labor of domestic workers. She gravitates toward nontraditional art materials, repurposing salvaged cardboard, distressed canvas, trash bags and magazines — the latter being the main material used in the student workshop.
Jay Lynn Gomez, Last Look, 2023*
Students at the collage workshop were welcomed by a warm atmosphere of bright orange and murals spanning the walls of the La Casa Latina Student Center, where the event took place. Organized in the middle of La Casa’s communal space were table pods equipped with stacks of magazines, glue and a single poster paper. The layout deliberately encouraged students to create their collage works together.
Jay Lynn Gomez introduced herself and spoke of the Chicana/o sensibility and conceptual aesthetic category of rasquachismo, which utilizes resourcefulness in creativity. Defined by Gomez as “making things with what you have,” rasquachismo is central to her ethos as an artist:
“As I created my career as an artist, I started learning how materials that are so present for me may look like nothing, may look like trash, but I can turn it into something that eventually gets seen in these museums and these [art] spaces.”
Gomez reminded students that their collage is “about you exploring your own [associations with the visual material]… [The] goal is to create something, but it doesn’t have to be something fully realized.”
Jay Lynn Gomez talking with PSU students
The collaborative collages varied, from exploring life and death, and apocalyptic futures, to industrialism in the urban Portland environment.
The Energy to Survive student collage
One collage centered on the found phrase, “The energy to survive”. A student who collaborated on the collage said the quote made her team think about life and death. Black and white images filled one side of the collage, which were juxtaposed by luscious imagery of nature on the opposite side. The quote inspiring the piece was placed at the center of the page where the contrasting imagery clashes.
Industrialism vs. Nature student collage.
Eric Tveretinov elaborated on his team’s collage, which they titled Industrialism vs. Nature:
“This is mainly inspired by nature and industrialism and it really fits the Portland vibe and with the environment in the Portland metro area. You can see how nature and industrialism collide. On the right we have nature, and on the left we can see different things that are inspired by industrialism. And then at the center you can see how those two are incorporated.”
Tveretinov’s collage partner, Aide Robles Rodriguez, succinctly explained the juxtaposing images meeting at the center of the page as “a balance in the middle.”
In Retrospect it Might Have Been a Clue student collage.[From left to right]: Candice Bancheri, Jay Lynn Gomez, Aileen Parra Perez and Sam Chavez-Perez, “Art in
Conversation” at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU.
Later that evening, students, faculty and community members attended JMSA at PSU for a public gallery discussion with the artist, led and moderated by two La Casa student program leaders, Aileen Parra Perez and Sam Chavez-Perez. The intimate discussion explored themes around labor, class, representation and visibility within existing capitalist systems.
Sam studies philosophy and social science at PSU. As a student organizer, their work centers migrant self organization and focuses on combating the root causes of forced migration. They set the tone of the event, beginning the discussion with a personal statement:
“I see in Jay Lynn's work an investment in the politics of images. [...] These forms of labor — domestic labor, fieldwork and landscaping — to other Latiné working-class migrants are not invisible. It is present in our ojeras (our eyebags), the wrinkles that blanket our hands and our faces and in our very lives in and of themselves, as in this capitalist system, many of us are only able to continue living because of the fruits of this invisibilized labor. These societally-invisibilized forms of labor are part of the everyday fabric of our livelihood, and they are of yours too. I look at Jay Lynn's work and see a heart wide open invested in painting back in what has been erased: the life-sustaining labor of migrant workers.”
Aileen, who is a first generation student studying international business at PSU, asked Gomez the pivotal question, “What does labor of love mean to you?”
Labor of love to me, as a statement, means going beyond what you’re asked of.
Reflecting on her time working as a live-in nanny, Gomez explained:
“I was hired as a nanny, but what they’re not paying me is to give my extra love to the kids, to be patient with them, to care, to nurture… [I] think of that word and phrase sort of like an expression of how many of us sometimes go above and beyond for each other.”
Patrick Martinez and Jay Lynn Gomez, Labor of Love, 2022*
In the context of the artwork on view titled Labor of Love, Gomez discussed more intimately her collaboration with fellow artist Patrick Martinez. The artwork was made in homage to Martinez’s mother, Evelyn, who cleaned the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles for many years. Gomez shared:
“He mentioned how this piece was coming from a memory of his mother and how he’s noticed throughout his work that he likes to clean, or move paint around, or make gestures on his pieces that remind him of his mother's cleaning. Her labor in maintenance is something he very much criticizes in his work and stands up against. It’s hard for an artist to sometimes vocalize these things, but as a collaborator, I heard him immediately say ‘This is about my mom’. [...] I immediately heard the mother component and I knew where I wanted to take this piece.”
Patrick Martinez and Jay Lynn Gomez, Labor of Love (detail), 2022*Patrick Martinez and Jay Lynn Gomez, Labor of Love (detail), 2022*
“Art in Conversation” was a wonderful opportunity for JSMA at PSU to work with the PSU community by providing various methods to critically think through art. Evidenced by Gomez’s practice, the collaborative collages and the intentional conversation that ensued, art has an overarching ability to share perspectives and create community.
Visit JSMA at PSU to see Labor of Love and Jay Lynn Gomez’s work in person. The exhibit is on view through April 27, 2024.
MORE ABOUT ART IN CONVERSATION, JSMA AT PSU, AND THE WORKS DISPLAYED IN THIS POST:
JSMA at PSU’s “Art in Conversation” engagement series takes the form of a public gallery discussion, featuring PSU students and faculty in conversation with contemporary visual artists. Organized by Candice Bancheri, JSMA at PSU’s Luce Foundation Curator of Academic Programs, the series serves as a catalyst for critical dialogue and trans-disciplinary perspectives on contemporary issues explored by artists and scholars alike. The program adopts the university’s mission of inclusive, interdisciplinary and inquiry-based education.
The Winter 2024 “Art in Conversation” event was organized collaboratively with Carrie Vasquez, Program Coordinator at La Casa Latina Student Center, with support from PSU’s Queer Resource Center and Trans Women’s Community Project at the Women’s Resource Center.
Exhibition Credits:
Labor of Love is curated by Alexandra Terry, Curator of Contemporary Art, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe. Support for this exhibition provided by The Ford Family Foundation, the Richard & Helen Phillips Charitable Fund and the Exhibition Circle.
*Full image credit:
Jay Lynn Gomez, Last Look, 2023, acrylic on magazine, 11 x 8.5 inches, Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, © Jay Lynn Gomez
Patrick Martinez and Jay Lynn Gomez, Labor of Love, Stucco, neon, ceramic, acrylic paint, spray paint, latex house paint, family archive photos, ceramic tile and led signs on panel; Acrylic on cardboard, fabric, 60 x 120 inches, Courtesy of the artists and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, © Patrick Martinez and Jay Lynn Gomez, Image: Mario Gallucci, Courtesy of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University (Portland, Oregon).
Collage workshop and Art in Conversation photos by Kylea Craig
LINKS:
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU
La Casa Latina Student Center
Queer Resource Center
Women’s Resource Center