Last week in Mexico City, we wandered into the Mooni Gallery and discovered a work we couldn’t stop looking at. The artist? @monicaloya – muralist, visual storyteller, and now the curator of this week’s Sunday List!
Swipe to get to know her through her culture recs right now...
The forces driving Loya’s brush are desire, anxiety, introspection, femininity, and a deep understanding of the relationship between nature and artificiality. These merge with her intimate sensitivity and profound self-analysis. In her paintings, the visceral and the subtle fuse through collective imagery, bridging melancholy, anxiety, and the uncertainty of existence. The beautiful and the exotic surrender to the fantastic, invoking Baudelaire’s decadence.
Close-ups of faces about to be made up, fragmented photographic effects, and snapshots invite the observer to reconstruct the full image, becoming a momentary voyeur of an intimate, feminine, defiant, and dramatic story. Captured moments, mirages, and symbols speak of being — both intimate and collective. Works resolved in silhouettes, blood-red lips, and phantasmagorias create a spectrum full of drama and tension. Intimate routines and intensity produce a “gore of the everyday” or a true “aesthetic of nostalgia,” in the artist’s words.
The feminine is the protagonist; color builds the drama, and relational eroticism acts as protest. Loya’s ability to communicate complex emotions and create spaces for reflection on the human condition establishes her painting as a fundamental reference in contemporary Mexican art.
Text by Laura Martínez Terrazas
“Beauty Hurts”
Viewing Room by Mónica Loya
Read the full text in the link in our bio 🔗
Mónica Loya (b. 1990) is a distinguished Mexican visual artist whose work explores the human psyche through a lens of pop surrealism. Born and raised in Chihuahua, Mexico, she developed a passion for art early on, eventually graduating with a degree in Visual Arts from the Centro Regional de Estudios Superiores Palmore.
Her artistic style is characterized by enigmatic portraits and feminine figures that inhabit dreamlike, often melancholic environments. Using a signature palette of soft pinks and baby blues, Loya captures the "surreal side of everyday life," blending delicate aesthetics with themes of introspection and female anxiety. Her versatile practice spans analog illustration, oil painting, and large-format murals, including collaborative projects like a 2019 mural in Mexico City honoring Mexican women.
Based in Mexico City since 2014, Loya has achieved significant international recognition, exhibiting her work in galleries across London, Seoul, Lisbon, and the United States. In addition to her fine art, she has collaborated with major global brands such as Pandora, Vans, and Glamour, further solidifying her influence as a leading voice in contemporary Mexican visual culture.
Mónica Loya (@monicaloya )
"Nothing Lasts And Everything Hurts"
2025
Oil on fabric
40 x 30 cm / 15,7 x 11,8 in
Unique
DM for availability
(☆▽☆) Durante la pandemia, @monicaloya decidió volcarse por completo a la pintura y apostar por vivir del arte. Desde entonces, su obra se ha convertido en un espacio personal donde explora la ansiedad femenina, usándola como una herramienta de autoanálisis y autorregulación emocional.
Conoce su trabajo cuéntanos ¿tú qué interpretas en su obra?
(★ Lee la nota completa en el link en bio.
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(☆▽☆) During the pandemic, @monicaloya fully devoted herself to painting and committed to making a living from her art. Since then, her work has become a personal space where she explores female anxiety, using it as a tool for self-analysis and emotional regulation.
Discover her work and tell us—what do you see in it?
(★ Read the full story at the link in bio.
#localmx #agendalocal #arte #studiovisit
