COVER STORY

Artist, muralist and activist Ruben Rojas transforms blank walls into unique empowering messages that are uplifting communities and challenging the public to create new dialogues.

Love Lockdown

Artist and activist Ruben Rojas uplifts others with his empowering murals

By Bridgette M. Redman

It’s important what we choose. It’s why Ruben Rojas wants to get his message out as widely as he can in places where as many eyeballs can see it as possible. His message is to choose love. To live love. His medium is painting and his murals can be seen all over Los Angeles and the world.

Not that Rojas limits himself to murals. He recently started a podcast called “Live Through Love” and painted a live mural during the NFL Honors After Party during Super Bowl weekend. He’s a TED speaker and a philanthropist. He has a clothing line that is covered out versus being like, let me check in on people, what can I do to spread an uplifting message?”

While Rojas has been an artist all his life, it was only in 2013 that he started to make the leap to doing it full-time and leaving behind his successful career as a financial advisor. He said he found himself questioning why he did what he did. “I found that the carrot was purely money,” Rojas said. “I mean, it’s good work, but I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t motivated. I was depressed. I was like — I’m successful, I’m healthy, I live in LA. Why am I depressed? Why am I miserable? Why am I unhappy?” He realized it wasn’t enough just to have a lot of money. He signed up for a class on emotional intelligence, trying to figure things out. He was sketching a design on a piece of paper and his buddies in the class looked at it and told him he needed to put it up on a wall. That became his first mural. For a while he tried being both an artist and a financial planner, but he started sabotaging his career in the finance business because if he kept succeeding, leaving it would be harder. However, he had always been an entrepreneur with good business acumen and he started to figure out how to make money with art, how to pay the

with his designs. His most recent mural “Human” was unveiled in Marina del Rey to remind everyone of our shared humanity. It was painted to welcome LA out of the long pandemic lockdowns and as a reminder to treat others well. Demetria Johnson of PressPassLA said they were drawn to work with Rojas because his message of “Live through love” has come at such a pivotal time. “You turn on the TV now and the first thing you see is the war going on and it’s just heartbreaking,” Johnson said. “People turn off the TV because they’re like, I can’t deal with it. They want to brush everything bills and be a success. In 2018, he left finance cold turkey and became a full-time artist. Murals were something that made sense to Rojas as he had always been a fan of graffiti. He never actually did it on the walls in those days, but he filled his sketch books and he hung out with graffiti kids. “I love that kind of art and that concept of writing your name or words—I’m big into words — so it was always there,” Rojas said. “And then when I would travel, I’d take photos of the murals and all the artwork.” While he never thought then that he would be the guy painting the wall, his interest in the genre made a lot of sense

for him, especially when he had important conversations he wanted to share. He pointed out that he could share his message in one-on-one conversations, or on a stage in front of a crowd. Or he could have a conversation with a wall and that wall could carry the conversation to tens of thousands of people. One of his murals in Oakland is seven stories tall and the freeway crosses it, so it carries his conversation to millions of people. Some of Rojas’ murals on the Westside include LOVE in Mar Vista, Naam Love Wall in Santa Monica, Gracie at Neighbor Restaurant in Venice, Do What You Love in Marina del Rey, and multiple murals for Mark Twain Middle School. He also created Elephant Love at the LA Zoo, Words of Affirmation at Lululemon Studio City, and Unconditional Love at Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks, among others. “I can leave it all on the wall with paint and paint this message that I hope people can interpret and make it theirs,” Rojas said. “I say live though love and I use the words love, gratitude, beautiful and all those kinds of things. I just open the door and you’ve got to walk through it and apply it to however you need it.” Rojas told a story about how in 2018 he painted a mural that said, “You belong here.” For him, he was telling himself that he belonged in the world as an artist. But someone contacted him about what it meant to them. They messaged him and said, “Hey, Ruben, today I didn’t kill myself because I saw your work. Because your mural says I belong here. You’re right. I do belong here.” It is part of how his art means different things to different people but is his way to speak and connect with people. It has also informed the way he has expanded his work. While he has murals all over LA, in New York, Paris and elsewhere, not everyone can see each mural. So he branched out. “Not everyone can see it, OK, then we’ll do canvas work,” Rojas said. “Not everyone can buy a canvas? Okay, here’s some prints. Oh, clothing— clothing is more accessible, and it can reach more people.” Rojas is committed to a message of optimism, of choosing love every day, in part because the world needs it so very much, especially after these past few years. “You turn on the TV and we are fed a buffet of fear, right?” Rojas asks. “All we see is doom and gloom and it’s sensationalized. People want to commiserate, or they want to know that someone’s feeling worse than them so they feel a little bit better about themselves. You see this and it’s contagious. And I don’t think it is the right kind of contagious that we should be spreading.” Rojas believes we can operate from a pillar of fear or a pillar of love. Whichever one you choose, you end up saying all the things that make it true. People can repeat negative messages that come true or they can choose positive ones. “Let me look at this through love and what can I do to be optimistic and positive,” Rojas said. “And I know it’s not easy. It’s not easy to say, ‘I forgive you for cutting me off in traffic. I hope you get there safe.’ That takes practice and restraint. It’s so much easier to be like, ‘I hope you get pulled over,’ right?” It helps, he said, to remember that unless a person is a sociopath or psychopath, they are doing the best that they can with the information they have at the moment — and that we just happen to be selfish, self-absorbed creatures. He pointed out that optimism and love is hard work. His art is not frou-frou and Hallmark. He doesn’t use unicorns and Valentine’s sweets. His work isn’t what he describes as “cute.” Rather, he leads with his heart and tries to show that in his work. He chooses to not let negativity affect him. Rojas is a native Angeleno, born and raised in LA, and is a big fan of his native city, despite it being expensive and some people thinking that it is fake. He believes that people like him who were born here have a different vibe than those who move here. They relate to it differently. It also gets him excited about doing anything LA-related. He remembers from his childhood the aftermath of the Olympics in LA and all the excitement that it generated. Now, with it coming again, he wants to be a part of it. It is his dream to design the Olympic uniforms and he’s already started mockups of them. This past Super Bowl was another exciting event for him as an Angeleno. “It was in LA, it was the LA Rams and it was on my birthday,” Rojas said. “And then being able to represent the city was awesome. I love when they actually pick LA people to represent LA people. That was always an honor and the NFL let me play with their logos. I’m like, OK, I want to do this, cool!” Johnson pointed out that Rojas turned down so much when he left the corporate space and committed to lifting the message of love through his art. “It was never about money, it was never about notoriety, it was never about fame,” Johnson said. “It was about following his heart. And that’s why success leads to what he does. When he has things that he wants to do like the Olympics — the Olympics is a worldwide stage. The reason he wants to work with the Olympics is because this message can only grow from here and that’s just what we all need. We’re in the City of Angels and I call Ruben an angel among us.” Rojas recently became a father, though he said that hasn’t changed the expression of his work, only reinforced how important it is. His goal has always been about leaving the world a better place than he found it. He always wanted to make sure the world children came into would be a world full of love. It’s why he is very focused in on his message of “Live through love.” It’s something he’d love to see major brands pick up in part because of the difference it can make for kids. “If the kids see it and they start really honing in on live through love,” Rojas said. “We’ve got to get it more out there in front of more eyeballs. Like — just do it. Nike is ‘Just do it.” Ruben is ‘Live through love.’ Then Nike can be like, ‘Hey, Ruben, just do it and live through love.’ If more and more kids start living that way, I think that’s a good way we can affect change and create change in the world.” Rojas continues to dream big. He wants to elevate his platform to show people that there are men who are talking about love and creating a positive message. He said he’d love to be in museums and to have his clothing line collaborate with such brands as Nike or Louis Vuitton. Rojas isn’t likely to stop until he’s spread the message of love through the universe. He’d even like to paint the first mural on Mars.

Rojas’ vibrant murals are located throughout Southern California including Venice, Marina del Rey and Santa Monica.