Manos que pintan, a film by
Rithwick Chary

Monica Curiel is a Mexican American sculptor and designer working across contemporary art and collectible design. She creates wall reliefs, furniture, lighting, and objects using plaster, spackling paste, and other familiar construction materials. Through her practice, Curiel traces the memories and histories carried by materials, labor, and inherited ways of making to understand how they shape identity.Illusion recurs throughout her work, giving construction materials qualities of softness and movement while allowing function to become an extension of sculptural form.

Raised in Dallas, Texas, by parents from Jalisco, Mexico, Curiel first encountered these materials while working alongside her father on construction sites. Those experiences continue to shape her relationship to materials and her approach to art and design.