RubeZilla Art Exhibit Decks the Halls at the Former Marijuana Mansion

Ruben Cabrera's art has become a fixture at Colorado cannabis businesses. His murals cover dispensary walls, and head growers and extractors line up for commission work. But Cabrera, better known as RubeZilla, has an artistic portfolio that includes everything from sculptures to music videos as well as paintings, and he's showing it all through the holidays.

Cabrera partnered with Weedmaps and Police & Thieves dispensaries to display his body of work at a holiday party at the Creswell Mansion (formerly known as the Marijuana Mansion, and located at 1244 Grant Street) in mid-December. The Mansion is still open for tours despite the name change and has decided to keep Cabrera's art up for an indefinite amount of time, putting its own eclectic collection in storage for the moment.

Cabrera has painted over twenty dispensaries since 2018, most recently Brooklyn's first retail store; the majority of these works feature different versions of his hallmark droopy heads. He also led a collaboration of Denver artists in the painting and decorating of Spark Dispensary earlier this year, and already has plans to paint murals on two new head shops in the city in 2024.
But the work now on display at the mansion is much broader. In addition to droopy-head paintings, there are music pieces and poetry, sculptures, canvas work and commercial collaborations for Red Bull's ice-skating team and Timbuk2 backpacks.

"I have a good five or six years of work that I haven't shown anyone outside of Instagram or pop-up parties, so this will be the first time all of my work is in one place," he says. "I'm very proud of what I've done in cannabis, but I'm excited to show my entire catalogue. ... There were so many things I did earlier in my career. I have a ten-year catalogue of music that I wrote that has never really been released to the public."

All ten rooms of the Creswell Mansion, as well as the staircase and lobby, are currently adorned with Cabrera's art, which he describes as "a step through spiritual growth or one person's conscious journey in a lifetime." The work on display is largely rooted in geometry and sacred shapes, he adds.

"It's a lot more than the faces, and those are a lot more than just scribbles and sketches. They're all built in the practice of prayer. The eye shape comes from a very sacred shape," Cabrera says. "I'm excited to use this show to separate RubeZilla the person from RubeZilla the commercial artist."

The building's ownership operated the property for three years as the Marijuana Mansion, but changed the name back to the Creswell Mansion, honoring its original owner in the 1890s, after listing the property for sale for $2.3 million earlier this year. It has not yet been sold, however, and continues to operate as an event venue.

Tours of the mansion — which include the chance to see Cabrera's show — can be booked online for $25.