Some SoCal residents spent their summer at the beach, or at their local rooftop pool; others spent it indoors, hiding from ICE agents.
It’s why Riverside artist Perry Picasshoe spent his summer documenting the melting of 36 ice blocks on sidewalks across the Inland Empire.
He traveled to nine locations, a mix of parks, storefronts and gas stations, where immigration enforcement raids have taken place in the past few weeks. In each spot, he placed four 25-pound ice blocks on the ground and took photos of them as they melted. He would periodically check on the progress, he explained, and found that some were smashed into pieces or completely disappeared.
“I took it as a metaphor of what’s happening,” Picasshoe said, referencing the recent ICE raids taking place across Southern California. “I was also thinking a lot about having these blocks of ice as almost a stand-in for people.”
This latest art piece is just one of the many other Chicano-focused projects that Picasshoe has created in his hometown in the past three years. His goal, among all of the artworks, is to push its residents to reflect on the complexity of the Inland Empire’s Latino identity.
Juan Carlos Hernandez Marquez is an emerging Mexican American multidisciplinary artist from Riverside who goes by the stage name Perry Picasshoe. The moniker, which he created as a teenager, is a play on Pablo Picasso’s name mixed with an early 2010s social media term “art hoe.” Under this pseudonym, Picasshoe first gained recognition for creating art that explored the complexities of his dueling identities of being an LGBTQ+ artist while surrounded by traditional Latino ideals.
While studying visual arts at UCLA, he reimagined Sandro Botticelli’s painting “The Birth of Venus” with LGBTQ+ imagery, created a 9-foot-tall Christmas cactus in honor of the time he spent with his father during the holidays and hosted a solo exhibition called “Mystic Garden,” which showcased pieces inspired by flowers given to him by an ex-partner. It’s also where he developed his signature red-dominant style in both his fashion and art.
“Red is my comfort color,” Picasshoe said.
He suffered from occasional panic attacks while studying at UCLA, he explained, which discouraged him from going to school. It continued for months — until he found himself wearing a bright red outfit, which brought him a sense of peace.
“It just kind of grew from there,” he added. “It just followed me everywhere that I went.”
Picasshoe also posted videos showcasing his pieces on social media. Like his artwork, his posts were intricately filmed and edited with bright red accents. They were also accompanied by narration detailing the work’s inspiration, creation process and meaning. His efforts amassed him almost 200,000 followers between TikTok and Instagram.
This rapid growth, both on social media and within his network, brought new opportunities to grow professionally in Los Angeles. Yet after graduating in 2022, he decided to continue his career in his hometown instead.
“It was just a different pace that I was not ready for,” he said. “The art scene out here is much more [based in] community, as opposed to [money] or clout. It’s more of making work that people here will get to enjoy.”
It’s a decision that’s worked in his favor.
This year, he’s been honored by the city at the Mayor’s Ball for the Arts with the Emerging Artist award and recognized as one of UCLA’s top 100 alumni entrepreneurs for 2025. Picasshoe’s decision to be a professional artist within the Inland Empire also came at a time when opportunities for Latino artists in the region have grown in recent years.
Cosme Cordova, long-time Riverside Chicano artist and Division 9 Gallery founder, explained that for decades, Latino artists considered Riverside a “boot camp” instead of a city where they could make a living. They would earn some money in their hometown, then travel to other prominent locations, like Los Angeles or Palm Springs, where artists felt their work was more respected. As the years went on, he said, the local community began to understand the value in supporting its artists.
“Then when the Cheech came, it’s got international attention, so it’s just gotten even better,” Cordova said. “I’m starting to see a lot of artists now more genuinely focused on just trying to showcase their work here in Riverside.”
The most prominent addition within the region has been the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture — known colloquially as “the Cheech.” The museum is widely considered the only space in the country that exclusively showcases Latino-made exhibitions, including some of Picasshoe’s work.
Since returning to the Inland Empire, Picasshoe’s artistic vision caught the attention of both community leaders and larger institutions. While hosting one of his first solo exhibitions, called “Red Thoughts,” at the Eastside Arthouse in Riverside, the directors of the Cheech took notice of his unique style.
“They approach their work with abandon, with any medium,” said María Esther Fernández, the center’s artistic director. “They had an installation and it was very interactive and immersive. I think pushing the boundaries of that is really fun and innovative.”
It would lead Picasshoe to work on a wide range of projects in collaboration with the Chicano art center for the next three years.
Last year, Picasshoe teamed up with Inland Empire-based artist Emmanuel Camacho Larios to curate an exhibition for the Cheech’s community gallery called “Desde los Cielos.”
“It was a group show that explored what the term ‘alien’ meant in the context of Chicanxs, and alien in the political, the social and the queerness of it all,” Picasshoe said. “I also made a huge painting for that one, the largest that I’ve ever done so far.”
The seven-foot-tall painting, called “Simulacra of Guillermo Hernandez, Beethoven, y los Guachimontones,” depicts his late grandfather sitting on the bed of a pickup truck alongside a small chihuahua. In the background, looming over his abuelo, is a giant circular pyramid built by the Teuchitlán people. A golden pyramid, made from Abuelita Mexican Chocolate bricks, was placed in front of the painting; the bricks were free for the taking during the exhibition’s debut.
After the time for his co-curated exhibition ended, another installation named “Queer Wishes” was featured in the Cheech for an exhibition co-curated by the Eastside Arthouse’s founder and resident artist.
The piece is a three-dimensional black box with a white dress made from bath towels and bedazzled gems displayed on a dress form mannequin inside. Next to the mannequin is a small black vanity desk and mirror with makeup and porcelain wishbones filling the table’s surface.
“The first time I was really able to express myself was when I would get out of the bathroom, put my bath towel on and pretend it was a dress,” Picasshoe said. “I know I’m not the only one with that experience of being in the bathroom and having that be the only time you have to yourself.”
Since debuting the installation at the Cheech, Picasshoe had hoped to take a step back from creating larger community-focused pieces and spend time finalizing some personal projects. However, as immigration enforcement raids ramped up in Southern California, Picasshoe felt the need to create artwork to express his frustration.
Picasshoe and his father drove the family truck to Fontana on July 3 to pick up three translucent ice slabs, each about 40 inches tall and weighing around 300 pounds, and brought them back to downtown Riverside.
They arrived 45 minutes before the start of the city’s monthly arts walk, an event where dozens of local vendors set up booths to sell their artwork to hundreds of residents.
Picasshoe and his father slowly unloaded the slabs from the truck’s bed onto a dolly and wheeled the installations out into the three chosen locations: the front of the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture, the epicenter of the city’s monthly arts walk event and the front of the Riverside County Superior Court.
A wooden platform was placed under each slab, with the words “life,” “liberty” and “the pursuit of happiness,” written upside down and divided between the three art pieces, along with a QR code explaining its meaning.
He chose this day, he said, because of its high foot traffic. It was the best opportunity to help some passersby feel represented while confronting others with a hard truth.
“Art should be lived in,” Picasshoe said. “It’s prevalent in a lot of my work, and especially this one, since it’s meant to be commenting on something regarding the public.”
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