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Cardboard cutouts

Artist Ramiro Gomez, 25, collects discarded cardboard from a store. Gomez uses the cardboard as a canvas to paint his series on Latino gardeners, nannies and day laborers.

Artist Ramiro Gomez, 25, collects discarded cardboard from a store. Gomez uses the cardboard as a canvas to paint his series on Latino gardeners, nannies and day laborers.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

For the last eight months, Ramiro Gomez, an artist from West Hollywood, has made the invisible visible by installing life-size cardboard cutouts of nannies, gardeners, valet workers and housekeepers across wealthy neighborhoods such as Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Hills.

Ramiro Gomez

Gomez carves around his painting of a nanny in his studio in West Hollywood.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Ramiro Gomez

Gomez places the paintings in public places around the Westside. He leaves his contact information on the bottom.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Ramiro Gomez

Gomez hopes his works shed light on the unseen laborers who keep homes and lawns and care for youngsters.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

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Ramiro Gomez

Pedestrians walk past a cutout of a gardener holding a bag of yard clippings mounted on an iron fence along La Cienega Boulevard.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Ramiro Gomez

“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?”  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

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