Latino artists featured in the Hammer Museum’s “Made in Los Angeles” Biennial.

Somehow in Los Angeles, it all comes down to traffic.

While exhibiting their work at the Hammer Museum’s Made in Los Angeles Biennial, artists Patrick Martinez, Freddy Villalobos, and Gabriela Ruiz set out to capture the essence of the city’s busy streets through different lenses.

For more than a decade, The Hammer has curated the Made in LA series to highlight artists grappling with the realities of living and making art here. It’s an art show that simultaneously pays tribute to longtime Los Angeles artists like Alonzo Davis and Judy Baca, and provides a platform for new faces like Lauren Halsey and Jackie Amezquita.

This year’s exhibition, which opened last month, includes 28 artists. As part of this group, Martinez, Villalobos, and Ruiz bring their lived experiences as Latinos from Los Angeles to the Westside art institution, drawing inspiration from the landscape in which they grew up.

While creating their exhibited works, Martinez noticed many neon signs hanging in store windows, prompting him to create “Hold the Ice,” an anti-icy particle sign, and to incorporate bright pink lights into his outdoor brick mural, “Battle of the City on Fire.” With flashing lights and a locked gate mounted on a painted wooden panel, Ruiz drew on her experiences exploring the city at night and hyper-observing selected neighborhoods in the interactive piece “Collective Scream.” Villalobos photographed Figueroa Street from the driver’s perspective, observing the nighttime activity on the street and tracking the energy surrounding the spot where soul singer Sam Cooke was shot.

This year, “Made in Los Angeles” doesn’t belong to a specific theme or title — but as always, the art chosen remains relatable. These three artists sat down with De Luce to discuss how growing up in Los Angeles influenced their artistic practices and how their exhibited works are shared in conversation. Made in LA will be on view until March 1, 2026.

The following conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

The three of you seem to highlight different elements in public spaces in Los Angeles. How is your art affected by the circumstances around you?

Ruiz: I’ve really been exploring Los Angeles as a whole, through partying and going out at night. I prefer seeing this city at night, because there is not much traffic. This is how my artistic practice began. I was performing in weird nightlife venues and throwing parties in cheap warehouses. As I move out of the valley, I’ll notice a lot. I won’t speed on the highway. Instead, I’ve been taking different routes, so I’m learning to navigate the entire city without a GPS and see things differently.

Martinez: This is also how I started seeing neon. I had a studio in 2006 downtown, off 6th and Alameda. I was waiting for the traffic to clear up because I was staying in Montebello at the time. I was driving down Whittier Street at night. And you see all the neon signs that have a very saturated color and glow brightly. I thought about her letters. None of the businesses were open that late. They were just letting people know they were there.

Ruiz: Specifically in this piece [“Collective Scream”]There’s a flashing street lamp. It reminds me of when I would leave rave parties and randomly see this dim light. It’s this hypnotic thing that I used to notice and notice when I was on the same road. There is also a moving gate, [in my piece,] It’s like the one you see when you’re driving late at night and everything is shut down.

Villalobos: You experience a lot of Los Angeles from your car. It’s vulgar. But f–that. This is correct. When I got out of Los Angeles, I felt a little weird. I missed my car bubble. You can spend what seems like a private moment in your car in a city crowded with traffic and many people. It got me thinking about what that means, what kind of paths people take, and how we grow community.

It’s interesting that you all found inspiration in the biggest complaints about Los Angeles. Maybe there is something to think about when it comes to the way those born here think about car culture and traffic.

Martinez: I see its effects even with the landscapes I paint. I’m going to work from left to right, and that’s how we all look at the world when we drive. I always think of Michael Mann’s films when I shoot landscapes, especially at night. He has all those quiet moments in the car and just focusing on what’s going on.

Besides scanning the streets, your works touch on elements of the past. There’s a common notion that Los Angeles tends to ignore its past, as when old restaurants close or when great works of architecture are torn down. Does this idea play any role in your work?

Martinez: The idea that Los Angeles was ashamed of its past led me to work with cinder blocks [in “Battle of the City on Fire”]. One of the main reasons was to bring attention to the East Los Streetscapers, muralists who painted in East Los Angeles [in the 1960s and ‘70s as a part of the Chicano Mural Movement]. There was this mural in Boyle Heights that was painted at a Shell gas station. It was later demolished, and in photos of the demolition, the shape of the cinder blocks on the ground looked like a carved painting. This prompted me to use cinder blocks as a form of sculpture and to think about the kind of modern monuments we are experiencing.

Villalobos: Talking about Los Angeles as a whole seems so great to me. But if I think about my particular neighborhood, in South Central, what comes to mind is the black radical tradition. It is where people are able to make something out of what others may see as nothing. There is always something being created, mixed and blended together to make something beautiful for me. It may not be pretty to others, but it is still a new and innovative way of seeing things and understanding what comes before us.

Ruiz: Seeing my parents, who immigrated to this country, coming from nothing and starting from scratch relates to that idea as well. Seeing what they’ve been able to accomplish, and understanding how immigrants can create businesses and restaurants here, speaks volumes about what Los Angeles is truly about. It’s about providing opportunity for everyone.

So Is it as much about ignoring the past as it is about making something out of nothing?

Martinez: It comes down to necessity for me. All over this city, people come together to do what they need to do to pay the rent. It’s a crazy amount of money to be here. People need to regularly modify what they do to survive. Lately, I’ve been seeing it more quickly. There are more food vendors and animated LED signs to advertise different things. Once you understand how expensive this wallpaper is, these things sit with me.

We’ve talked a lot about how the past influences Los Angeles and the role it plays in your art. Do you think of the future city of Los Angeles?

Villalobos: I feel very shy about what I’m going to say. But as much as I love Los Angeles and as much as it helped me become who I am, I wouldn’t be too mad about its collapse. A lot of people from my neighborhood have already moved to Lancaster, Palmdale and the Inland Empire. When I go to IE, I feel a little bit like I’m in LA and I’m not necessarily angry about that.

Ruiz: It’s really hard to see what the future holds for anyone. Even with art what will happen? I don’t know. It’s really hard to see the future when there’s a constant cycle of bad news about censorship and lack of funding.

Martinez: It’s mysterious. It’s cloudy. This whole year has been so heavy, and everyone talking about it just adds to it, right? We’re facing economic desperation, and it’s all kind of heavy. Who knows what the future will hold? But there are definitely moves by the ruling class to turn it into something.