LOS ANGELES, CA.- ROSEGALLERY will present a selection of works by Los Angeles–based artist Thal韆 Gochez for Open House at The REEF Los Angeles on August 29, 2026.
Shaped by her experience as the child of Salvadoran-Mexican immigrant parents, Gochez's photographs center on cultural identity, womanhood, and self-representation among Latinx women. For Gochez, a portrait begins long before the camera is raised — getting to know her subjects and building a genuine connection with them is as essential to her process as the image itself, and it is the subject, above all, who determines a project's creativity, location, and heartbeat. Working through a storytelling-driven, deliberately styled practice, she builds portraits and visual narratives set in homes, restaurants, and neighborhoods — environments that mirror who her subjects are and become extensions of the people within them.
Self-taught, she first picked up a camera while attending community college in San Francisco, buying her first one — uncertain whether it even worked — for a dollar at a flea market.
Her photographs move between nostalgia and a contemporary sensibility, carrying a strong emotional and cultural charge alongside a distinct personal style entirely her own.
Gochez's commitment to community extends beyond the frame — she has worked closely with Las Fotos Project, a 100% women of color-led nonprofit in Boyle Heights that has offered teenage girls and gender-expansive youth free photography training and mentorship since 2010, serving as a guest mentor through artist talks, panels, and hands-on opportunities, including bringing students onto commercial sets with her. Her work is also included in "Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966 to 2026," a landmark survey of Chicana/o/x photography on view at the Riverside Art Museum and The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture.
In centering Latinx communities and identity, her work creates spaces of comfort, recognition, and self-love, grounding and uplifting narratives too often overlooked and making her subjects feel truly seen.
