Their faces are vague, the color of coffee beans, but before Ramiro Gomez heads out with pliers and wire to install them, he gives each one a name. There was Guillermina, named for his Aunt Guille, a housekeeper at a casino hotel; Maria Elena, after his mom, a janitor at an elementary school; and Luis, like Uncle Luis, who delivers meat for a carniceria. 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…

Read more http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cardboard-artist-20120605,0,6539876.story

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