Aaron Johnson-Ortiz

Aaron Johnson-Ortiz is a Mexican-American/Chicanx artist based in St Paul, Minnesota. His art focuses on labor rights, immigrant rights, and the transnational Latino experience. Originally from Minnesota, Aaron grew up in Guatemala and in Chiapas, Mexico. His “Workers United In Struggle” mural was named “Best Mural” by City Pages in 2018. For his day job, Aaron is the Director of Arts & Cultural Engagement at CLUES (Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio), where he curates a Latino-focused art gallery and directs programming, including a folk arts program, a muralism apprenticeship, community workshops, etc. In his free time, he enjoys backpacking along Minnesota’s North Shore with his dog Aura.

About his Croma Zone mural:

“The central theme is resurgence. The mural expresses my feelings about the spring, and about coming out of COVID, and feeling more open and human, and being more connected to people. The characters in the image represent individuals bringing the best of themselves forward, bringing their internal essences, and giving that to the broader community. The heart as a tree of life is just that: a beating heart as love for the community, growing and blossoming. The flowers and foliage also represent spring and beauty and hope. The sun and the moon represent the passage of time (and since they are on opposite ends of the building, they will track the movement of the sun from east to west). The cicadas represent the act of coming out of the shadows and enjoying community and the beautiful weather (cicadas live buried for most of their lifecycle, usually a prime number of years – 5, 7, 17, etc – and then come out en masse as one “brood” for one summer). Some of the inspiration comes from my garden (those flowers blossom in my garden).

And also a lot of the imagery is influenced by Mexican folk art, especially the sun and the moon, the cicadas (which in Mexico serve as a symbol for singing and living life to the fullest before death), the characters which borrow some elements from religious symbols like the Virgen de Guadalupe, and the heart and tree of life, both of which are common elements in Mexican pop culture and folk arts.”

— Aaron Johnson-Ortiz

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@aa.johnsonortiz