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Victor Ochoa is a widely
recognized Chicano painter/muralist long considered to be one
of the pioneers of San Diego's Chicano art movement. He is a co-founder
of the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park, a multidisciplinary
community-based arts center devoted to producing and preserving
Indian, Mexican, and Chicano art and culture. He served as its
director from 1970-73, and from 1988-90. Until recently, Ochoa
had been a long time artist-in-residence there until he was kicked
out, with all of his material confiscated, by a new corporate
friendly board of directors (for more info visit the Save
Our Centro Coalition website). Ochoa was a co-initiator of
the Chicano Park community
murals, an internationally acclaimed public art project. He was
also co-founder of the "Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte
Fronterizo arts collective (1984-93).
Born in Los Angeles, in 1948, Ochoa lives and works on both sides of the San Diego/Tijuana border. He received a B.A. in Fine Arts in 1974, from San Diego State University. From 1988 to the present he has been a professor at Grossmont College, teaching "Mexican-Chicano Art and History", and he has also taught "Chicano Art in the Border Region" at the University of California, San Diego (1995-96). He also teaches art to high school students at the MAAC Project Community Charter School in Chula Vista, CA.
Ochoa has exhibited his paintings and graphic prints widely
and his works have been included in major traveling exhibitions,
such as Chicanarte (1975), Les Demons des Anges in Lyon, France
(1990), Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation (1990-93), and
Just Another Poster? Chicano Graphic Arts in California (2000-2003).
Ochoa also has created set designs for dramatic productions, such
as Handful of Dust (1991). He is credited with painting over 100
murals. He is the artist of Geronimo a mural depicting the kneeling
Apache warrior on the outside of the circular Centro Cultural
de la Raza building. The mural is a metaphor that symbolizes from
an indigenous perspective the Centro Cultural de la Raza's concern
over social disparities and inequities throughout our history.
In his 1987 silkscreen print Border Bingo/Lotería Fronteriza
Ochoa adopted the use of stereotypical caricatures and icons to
call attention to the socio-political and economic tensions and
disparities of the U.S./Mexico border region. He incorporates
in his visual satire the traditional Mexican lotería card
format and draws his inspiration from the politically charged
performance art work of the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte
Fronterizo, a program that addressed the social tensions caused
by the U.S.-Mexico border. According to Ochoa "art is part
of the solution of issues in society and Chicano art has been
the expression of our people's struggle."