Image via Instagram / Zachary Ochoa
Zachary Ochoa is an artist who is known for her colorful, whimsical Girl Hero universe. With these airbrushed acrylic pieces, she embellishes cartoon characters and fantastical creatures with magic and heroic imagery to represent themes of gender, self-perception and liberation. The series debuted in late 2021 at the Steve Turner Art Gallery in Los Angeles and it has been shown in Beijing, Miami and Chicago since.
Originally from the west Chicago suburbs, Ochoa attended Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) and had been interested in art from a young age. She recalled, “I was really into graffiti and anime stuff growing up but never really took it seriously, and then as I got older, I became interested in music, but it made more sense to me to go to school for art rather than music. I went for graphic design at first, but then I saw all the professors for the fine art program and was really interested in being a part of that, so I switched my major and started painting my sophomore year.”
She fell in love with painting and drawing, but “felt kind of intimidated by people there because I felt behind in a way and that made me really determined to get better. It almost became this obsessive thing where I’d practice basic stuff all the time to make sure that I’m always getting better. Now I’ve been doing it full-time since I graduated two years ago.”
Pandemic Project
Image via Instagram / Zachary Ochoa
Ochoa began building the Girl Hero series during the pandemic as a way to make art that resonated with herself following graduation. The series started with “Return of the Magic Sword.” She explains, “I was slowly creating this character with a hero archetype; I’ve always been interested in the hero story, and so in these early drawings and airbrush stuff I came up with this mouse-like character with a sword and one odd ear, one spiky ear … kind of like Mickey Mouse but a little off. I realized when I was looking at these three paintings ,I made that I was building this whole world of characters, and I loved the idea of someone’s name being “Girl Hero” as a nod to the hero story.”
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Girl Hero is inspired by some of Ochoa’s own self-perceptions. “She’s stocky, she’s got this exaggerated feminine form that’s also very masculinized, and her features reflect how I’ve felt about my own body parts. She’s like a mirror reflection of me but in the coolest way I could imagine myself (laughs), where I feel powerless as who I am in society, but how I can rival that position by creating something that’s more powerful than the people who are limiting me.”
She’s also incorporated ideas of morality and walking the line of good and bad with Girl Hero. “I wanted to create someone who was messy and angst-ridden, and while people are getting the first representation of this trans cartoon character I want them to hate her in some ways while also making her lovable. This raw character neglects respectability politics; sometimes she’s wrong and sometimes she’s right, but I want people to love all of her.”
Universe Expands
Image via Instagram / Zachary Ochoa
From there, Ochoa began networking on Instagram. She got connected with Sasha Bogojev, who interviewed Ochoa about “Return of the Magic Sword” for Juxtapoz magazine in November 2021. Steve Turner came across Ochoa after her work got shared on an online art gallery’s page. “I was super floored because I’d been trying to get something like that to happen, plus I was a big fan of his programming,” she said. “We set up a call and had a really long talk; I think we’re similar in a lot of ways and we made a really good connection.”
“All Dogs Go 2 Heaven” is the latest installment of the Girl Hero universe. Ochoa was inspired by tarot and the healing process for marginalized folks with these works. “It can feel cyclical in the sense of, how can you truly heal when you’re still a victim of the system and have feelings of revenge,” she explains. “It’s about trans, Black, queer people who do things that might be wrong and the heightened prosecution we face and the burden we hold.”
For Ochoa, “All Dogs Go 2 Heaven” is like a reclamation of navigating life the best one can and where heaven is the idea of grace and acceptance. She continues, “It comes from my own experience of working so hard on myself while still feeling very limited and being confused by my own feelings of anger and frustration, but also wanting to be in a good place.”
More Media
Leaning into more creative media, Ochoa plans to work more with sculpture as part of the Girl Hero series, saying, “I want my work to become more theatrical and cinematic, and sculpture will help bring the universe to life even more.”
On the biggest things she’s learned this past year, Ochoa shared, “There’s a lot of things that I thought would feel differently with where I’m at now. I think I’ve come to understand my ideas of success and what I really want, and those things don’t have to be on such a tight leash. I have to surrender a bit to timing and just do things when the time is right. There’s been times where social media and the art market have kind of made me feel differently about my work and there’s been times where it’s been hard to be energized by my ideas, but I remember no matter what happens that I’m blood-oath with this character and this story, and that I’m confident, excited and passionate about it. I’ve also learned how important rest and relaxation is, and how that’s so tied to ego and how you view yourself as a productive person, and I’ve been really unpacking that. I want to have a long career, and longevity is about stability.”
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Ochoa has also been collaborating with David Ruzicka and Eli Russell Linnetz on a graphic novel, plus she’s the vocalist of indie rock band Summer Birth. To view her work, visit her Instagram @evilgirl2005.
