MEET MONICA
Monica is a Costa Rican designer, artist, and photographer based in Vienna, Austria. She studied product design, is self-taught as an artist and photographer, and is currently pursuing a master's degree in documentary photography.
Her work spans painting, sculpture, object design, and photography, practices that look different on the surface but are all driven by the same impulse: a need to observe, create, and find beauty in the world around her.
She makes art to escape her own perfectionism. Abstract painting gave her a space where instinct takes over, no need to represent, no need to get it right, just movement, color, and the present moment. Her paintings are influenced by water, both literally and as a feeling. As a freediver, water shapes how she sees and moves through the world, and that same quality shows up in her work: flowing lines, gentle like a stream down a mountain, nothing forced or planned. Nature is her biggest reference, not as a subject to paint, but as a way of moving.
Her paintings are born from personal stories, experiences, emotions, the small mundane moments of a life lived observantly. She is a storyteller at heart, but not a controlling one. She shares what's hers and leaves the rest open, what you see, what you feel, what it means to you, is entirely your own.
Her design work comes from the same hands-on place. Every object, sculpture, product, piece, is designed and handcrafted by her. She makes the molds, pours each piece herself, works with concrete, plaster, and paint, and takes everything from sketch to finished object. Raw, physical, made to be touched.
Her photography is the opposite of staged. She shoots documentary-style with long lenses, staying far enough back that moments develop on their own. The same philosophy runs through everything she does, nothing posed, nothing imposed, just life as it is.
Monica's work is available for purchase and made to order. To inquire about a piece or commission, get in touch via the contact form.