About The Artist

Ruben Aguirre is a Chicago based painter who has transitioned from graffiti writing to abstract painter/muralist. He has produced a number of murals in the Chicago land area, and recently exhibited in "Paint, Paste, Sticker: Chicago Street Art" at the Chicago Cultural Center, and in The National Museum of Mexican Art exhibit, "Outside In: The Mexican-American Street Art Movement in Chicago". He received a B.A. from Columbia College Chicago with a concentration in painting in 2002. Ruben was born in 1979 in Chicago, Illinois.

 

Artist's Statement

My work has evolved from the ego-based, quantity driven Graffiti community to public mural work that embraces the communal and contemplative. Being a Graffiti artist mandates incessant exploration of new and different spaces. This motivation has stayed with me throughout my career and will always be an aspect of my work. In my journey to push my work beyond Graffiti, Chicago neighborhoods became my studio space and taught me the ability of visual art to re-contextualize existing structures. The power of the unexpected is something I understand deeply. The unexpected beauty and intention of murals have the power to create happiness and hope in ignored neighborhoods and spaces. My work is an abstraction of traditional Graffiti letter-forms that create organic shapes and line work that integrate with preexisting lines of buildings or surfaces. While graffiti was all about making myself known as an individual, my current work embraces contemplation on a space’s use, history and people to create visual work that enhances communities.