Gabriela Ruiz does not confine her art to the flat rectangle of a canvas or a screen. She uses wood, plexi, and foam like taffy: materials to be cut, stretched, pierced, repurposed, and stuffed with concealed cameras. As a self-taught artist who was raised in San Fernando Valley in LA, Ruiz learned elements of play and transformation from her Mexican-American culture and queer nightlife. Her DIY practice in video, sculpture, painting, and performance addresses the malleability of materials and technology around us. 

In the world of Gabriela Ruiz, the viewer is under surveillance. Paintings are not quiet or passive decor. Imagine walking over to a painting and suddenly hearing a door chime as if entering a bodega with a familiar “hello, welcome!” Cameras and screens are attached to Ruiz’s paintings like appendages, similar to constantly holding a front-facing camera phone. The first time I encountered The Power of Nine (2021) at PAMM, I smirked at the irony of subverting the camera’s gaze by taking a video of my own. Nearby viewers were documented and live on in my camera roll.

During her residency, Ruiz created a series of sculptural paintings for Made in L.A. 2025, an upcoming exhibition at The Hammer Museum. The works are still in progress, but the textures and faces instantly coax me into her fantasyland like a shared reality. In one untitled work, a blue face with red hot eyes stares ahead; a double-headed neon green snake slithers by. Another work depicts a blue face with green eyes covered by a surveillance camera; the subject is obscured, but the camera sees all. A round blade-like wooden panel is covered in cherry red mouths being pulled open by fingers. Layers are pierced with a thick fish hook. The face and its framing device are completely entangled.