Ruben Ochoa (1974-Present)

By Dane Moffat

Ruben Ochoa, What if walls created spaces?, 2007, lenticular print mounted on aluminium composite, 121.9 × 243.8 cm, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center, 2015.

Image courtesy of Ruben Ochoa.

Ruben Ochoa wants to alter the perception of your daily commute. Born on this day, 29 October 1974, in Los Angeles, California, Ochoa’s practice utilises space as both a concept and form to expose the ideological underpinning of built environments. Ochoa is an artist, not a driving instructor, but he tests the public’s spatial awareness. Drive too fast and you will miss it. Drive into it and you will hit a wall. Literally. The artist often plasters large-scale photographic panels on concrete walls which line the interstates and freeways of California. Working with industrial materials, like concrete and rebar, he produces new, albeit illusory, spaces from seemingly impenetrable materials.

The title of his installation What if walls create space? (2007) sums it up neatly. Ochoa encourages viewers to take their eyes off the road (only when they are stalled by traffic!) and see through the barriers formed by oppressive urban structures. The artist’s work operates at the intersection (and interstates, ha) of fiction and reality, showing how space controls bodies and local communities. This artwork was installed on the I-10 in an eastern part of Los Angeles and took particular aim at class issues that have risen from rapid urban expansion since the 1950s. By working with industrial and natural materials, Ochoa calls upon their inherent histories of oppression, referencing how these roads were built directly through working class neighbourhoods. Ochoa’s illusory spaces thus reconnect and provide imagined access to the isolated Mexican and Black communities beyond these walls.

Although much of Ochoa’s work occurs outside of institutional confines, he obtained his Master of Fine Arts from University of California, Irvine, in 2003 and regularly exhibits with his gallery, Vielmetter, in downtown Los Angeles. His art is also featured in major collections like the Smithsonian American Art Museum. So, if you ever find yourself driving on the West Coast, slow down a little and try find Ochoa’s imaginary spaces. Let them radicalise your perception of space.

Bibliography

Art Works For Change. “Ruben Ochoa.” Accessed October 28, 2025. https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/ruben-ochoa/

Vielmetter Los Angeles. “Ruben Ochoa.” Accessed October 28, 2025. https://vielmetter.com/artists/ruben-ochoa/