MONICA VILLARREAL, Artist

EDUCATION  2013: Master in Arts: Digital Media Studies, University of Clear Lake, Houston, , USA  2012: Symbiosis Institute of Design, Study Abroad Independent Projects: Typography and Video Documentary, Pune, Maharashtra, India  2009: Bachelor in Business, Entrepreneurship & Minor, Studio Arts, , Houston, Texas, USA  2008: Vesalius College, course: Lobbying for the EU and Internship with European Federation for Street Children, NGO, Brussels, Belgium

LEARDSHIP March 2018 - May 2018: Recipient of Artist Inc. Artist INC is a cutting-edge training seminar that addresses the specific business needs and challenges artists of all disciplines face every day. Limited to 25 participants per session, artists gather for one night a week for eight weeks to learn business skills specific to their art practice and apply those skills cooperatively with their peers. This program prepares the participants for a final presentation about their work in front of the city's most influential people and the Mayor of Houston at City Hall.

March 2007 – Present: Co-founder & Director, Creative Women Unite (CWU) CWU is a grassroots organization that facilitates a space where women can express themselves freely through arts. We organize annual event for International Women’s Day and Women’s Herstory Month during the month of March. This event promotes and supports inter-generational, multi-ethnic women artists of all backgrounds and genres.

August 2010 –August 2015: Co-founder & Second Lead Dancer, Danza Azteca Taxcayolotl, Danza Azteca Taxcayolotl is a traditional Mexican dance group that participates in indigenous ceremonies and educational presentations. Danza Azteca Taxcayolotl purpose is to facilitate space for people to share and learn about Mexica spirituality, traditions, and culture. We organize an annual event, "La Resistencia de Tenochtitlan" is a commemoration to the invasion of present time Mexico and the resistance of the Mexica nation from Tenochtitlan. Every year in August, this event brings over 50 dancers from around Texas, dressed in colorful regalia, wearing headdress with beautiful long feathers, and utilizing natural instruments to compose traditional rhythms for ceremonial dancing at Eastwood Park, located in the historic Second Ward of Houston, Texas.

RESIDENCIES & COLLABORATIONS February 2018: Newsstand Artist - What's the New News : Project Row House I painted a news stand for the What's The New News project. This stand is located at Doshi House in neighborhood of Third Ward in Houston, TX. This piece is dedicated to a place where everyone is welcome, no matter of skin color, culture or language. With that in mind, I wanted to create something that focused on humanism and equality. I utilized the color wheel as an inspiration for the design and graphic look of the piece. By doing this I wanted to communicate the idea of how the mixture of any of the primary colors within the color wheel can create any and every color in existence. This fact is also true for humans, although we’re all different shades and colors we’re all created the same, we all bleed the same blood, and we are all human. Embracing each other’s differences rather it be culture, food, language, etc. makes more sense than to hate one another because of our differences. In the words of Bob Marley, “One Love”

November 2015: Artist Residency - Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI) During my residency at SFAI I lead the curation of a group show titled All Refugees Welcome. This work in the show reflected solidarity with the larger artistic movement to welcome refugees. The participant artists believe the ongoing conflict of refusing refugees from Mexico, Central and South America, and Syria has created an atmosphere of fear instead of love. We recognize the responsibility to counteract this threat of fear through the use of art. For this show, I also collaborated with artist Lee Running to create an installation piece titled, Veiled Border. This piece explores the authors of borders, who creates them; who are affected by them; and who can see them?

October 2014 – March 2015: Studio Artist - Project Row Houses, Houston, Texas As a studio artist during round 41, I had a “shot-gun” house to install and transform for a six-month long project titled “Migration is?” during which I created work and programming analyzing the treatment of migrant workers and shifting the discourse from their worth as commoditized bodies to their intrinsic value as human beings.

October 2013 - March 2015: Artist Core Group - Voices Breaking Boundaries, Houston, Texas As an artist core group member during Borderlines, Part II: Migrations and Movement with Voices Breaking Boundaries, I worked with 3 other artists to curate and create site-specific artwork centered around labor issues faced by people in Houston as well as communities living in South Asian (Afghanistan-Pakistan-India- Bangladesh) and North American (Canada-US-Mexico) border regions.

AWARDS 2018: Idea Fund Grant, Houston, Texas Her intention with this project is to initiate and facilitate conversation about immigration, sexism, and discrimination as they relate to her experience as a brown girl. Using traditional Mexican printmaking, Villarreal will create a series of posters focused on issues that affect Latinx people. She will march with these posters at protests and organized actions throughout the year.

2012: Fan Favorite, Señorita Cinema Film Awards, Houston, Texas This award was given to me for my film, “Reclaiming the Indian Woman,” which I created during my time at the Symbiosis Institute of Design in Pune, Maharashtra, India. This film explored gender discrimination and touches on taboo subjects that need to be acknowledge by both men and women. It questions societal norms and how they are detrimental towards the mental, economical and emotional growth of women at an international level.

2010: Individual Artist Grant, Houston Arts Alliance, Houston, Texas This grant was awarded to me for a photography project titled, “Texas Red Road Project”, which documented the lifestyles and traditions of South Texas Navajo, Apache, Lakota, Mexica, and Chichimeca ancestry and explored the relative absence of the Native American influence in Houston’s art establishments.

PUBLICATIONS  Eccles, Tom. “Migration is?” Art Review Magazine: Summer 2016. 89: Print.  Villarreal, Monica and Weston, Charisse. “Inscriptions: Part I.” Borderlines Volume 2: Nov.2015. Voices Breaking Boundaries.  Villarreal, Monica. "Natural Flow of Migration." Origins Journal (2015): 18-19. Print.  Villarreal, Monica. “Houston Chicano Movement: Interview with Daniel Bustamante.” Borderlines, Volume 1: Feb. 2015. Voices Breaking Boundaries.

EXHIBITIONS March - May 2017: How Do I Say Her Name art exhibit at Art League Houston, Houston, TX, curator Ann Johnson February - March 2016: Immigration and Citizenship art exhibit at Idyllwild Arts Park Exhibition Center Gallery, Idyllwild, CA. November 2015: All Refugees Welcome, Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM, curator Monica Villarreal September 2014: Houston Fine Arts Fair, NRG Center, Houston, TX, curator Gabriel Martinez - Alabama Song November 2014: Houston Open Studio Tours, Winter Street Studios, Houston TX, curator Robert Pruitt June 2013: “Coming Through The Gap On The Back Of An Elephant”, Houston, TX, Texas Southern University Museum, curator Robert Pruitt 2010: “Texas Red Road Project”, Houston, TX, Fresh Arts 2010: FotoFest Exhibit, Bohemeos, Houston, TX, curator Liana Lopez 2007 – Present: Annual art exhibit for International Women’s Day and Women’s Herstory Month, curated by Creative Women Unite, a multicultural women’s art collaboration, Houston, TX

PERFORMANCES June 2016: Reading of “Houston Chicano Movement: Interview with Daniel Bustamante” Borderlines, Volume 1 art catalogue at the Voices Breaking Boundaries - Borderlines at the Northside Neighborhood Day Celebration in Near Northside, Houston, TX June 2016: Summer Sounds on the Plaza performance with Danza Aztec Taxcayolotl and Danza Chikawa at Rothko Chapel, Houston TX November 2011- November 2015: Annual Dia De los Muertos Celebration dance performance with Danza Azteca Taxcayolotl at Multicultural Education Counseling through the Arts (MECA), Houston, TX October 2014: Transport and Renewed, Silos III, dance performance with Danza Azteca Taxcayolotl in the East End/Second Ward Barrio for the Houston Arts Alliance, Houston, TX

LECTURES & WORKSHOPS January 10, 2016: "Made of Star Stuff: Mapping Constellations of Women Creatives": presentation and interactive game with Autumn Knight for Charge 2016 at the Art League Houston in Houston Texas. November 18, 2015: SFAI140: 20 presenters for 140 second presentation each at the Santa Fe Art Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. November 19, 2015: Danza Azteca and Stop Animation youth workshops at Moving Arts Española in Española, New Mexico. February 2015: Poesia, Arte, y Historia: The multiple ways we remember Moody Park Rebellion presentation with Deniz Lopez and Samantha Rodriguez for the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Texas regional conference at Lone Star Community College in Houston, Texas. April 2014: “Ethnic Labels & Art from a Chicana Prospective” Presentation, Gender, Sex and Power: University of Houston-Downtown’s 7th Annual Gender Conference in Houston, Texas. January 2011 - August 2012: Planed and implemented arts, cultural, educational, and recreational lesson plans for after school and summer youth programming with at risk children living in low income housing for Texas Inter-Faith in Houston, Texas. June – July 2010: Popo e Itzla Summer Camp, Dance Instructor for Tejaztlan Arte Collective a summer camp that combine theater, dance and art at the Houston Institute for Culture in Houston, Texas. January 2009 - June 2010: Perform a cultural and educational dance presentations routine that taught students about Mexican indigenous culture, language, and food at multiple elementary and middle schools as well as colleges inside and around the Houston Texas area.