b. 1993, Dallas, Texas

Rooted in the manual labor and trades of her upbringing, Monica Curiel is a multidisciplinary artist and designer who transforms construction materials—such as spackling paste, plaster, and other building mediums—into relief paintings, art objects, sculpture, furniture, and lighting. Born to Mexican parents from Jalisco, she was introduced to these materials working alongside her father on construction sites. Her practice engages with the cultural, familial, and labor histories embedded in these materials, often handled by immigrant workers like her parents but rarely recognized. By bringing her pieces into spaces that for her community have been places of service—cleaning homes, constructing houses, and lawn care—she honors and celebrates these communities through the beauty of art and design.

Through tactile explorations of texture and form, Curiel’s work interrogates themes of identity, visibility, and cultural inheritance, offering a departure from the vibrant color often linked to Mexican-derived art and design.

Curiel's diverse background includes studies in fashion and interior architecture, culminating in a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Kansas in 2021. Navigating a cancer diagnosis during this time fostered the expansive and experimental nature of her practice, which now spans painting, sculpture, and collectible design.

In 2024, Curiel was named to Dwell Magazine’s Dwell 24 and in 2023 to Sight Unseen’s American Design Hot List. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at This Is America at Alcova during Milan Design Week (2022) and in Art In The Time Of Corona™ on Artsy (2021).

Curiel's ongoing material-driven practice seeks to further explore the dynamic relationship between identity and the spaces we inhabit.

Photographed by Paul Miller