Home Artist Programs Supported Artists Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya

Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya

Sunland Park, New Mexico

Bleached white and vivid orange materials create coils, bodies, and panels of an incomplete vessel, which appear to have been blown apart in this gallery installation. Strands of debris and objects float on unseen cords from the ceiling, and the objects move away from the center in curving lines.

“Okay Pei Mei, here I come” / I will swallow the sun.

2024

Black pieces of plastic, sheeting, sombrero brims, cords, and wires are assembled into a loose arch shape suspended from the ceiling in a rock-walled room. A few white cones, reminiscent of teeth, poke out, and a red toggle switch draws the eye to the left leg, which ends with a white hoof and ankle that just brushes the stone floor.

“Cuando dos astros se interponen, su luz se extingue aparentemente. Pero en su breve convergencia, adquieren una nueva luminosidad, negra y ardiente.”

2023

White and silver sombreros, plastic sheeting, panels, wire, and other materials are formed into an organic but unrecognizable being. An orange plastic tray, perhaps the cover of a car’s blinker, at the top center in this view recalls an eye looking out from what could be a snout of a hunched over or stooped being.

Gloria Gloria, Balenciaga 2010 FW/RTW by Nicolas Ghesquiere, and Kate Moss as a hologram for Alexander McQueen

2022

Composite and metal car panels are layered to create a rough arching shape, which hangs from above from two white ropes. The panels are scuffed light metal or ocean-toned blue, and jagged edges create a prickly silhouette. A form like a dragon’s single claw hangs near the bottom.

Tlahuelpuchi

2021

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya

Ruben is a Hispanic artist with short black hair and a full beard. With his shoulders at a sharp angle, he takes a selfie in front of a landscape with cacti, shrubs, and a dirt expanse leading back to low hills under a blue sky.

Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya (1989) was born in Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico. He emigrated with his family to an immigrant community in the U.S.-Mexico border of El Paso, Juárez, and New Mexico. Rodriguez Montoya completed his MFA at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Fellowship, 2026

Website / Social Links

“ The sculptural beings I create are born from the collective fears of Latinx communities—a mythological genesis of toxicity, assimilation, forced migration, land exploitation, poverty, and gendered violence. In the face of fear and hopelessness, they arc and bend as they edge toward the light of other bodies, toward joy and pleasure and the infinite possibility of becoming.”