BIO
Monica Mohnot is an Indian American artist based in Austin, Texas. Born and raised in Kolkata, India, she moved to the United States in 2001. She received a BFA in Painting from Texas State University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Working at the intersection of painting and textile, Mohnot approaches painting as a durational, layered process. She constructs the surface itself by designing and weaving cloth before building it through painting, dye, vinyl, collage, and embroidery. Through these accumulated acts of making, her work embeds time, repetition, and attention directly into the material.
Her abstract compositions are composed of organic forms, interlacing lines, and densely layered surfaces that evoke bodies, landscapes, and internal systems without settling into fixed representation. Interested in perception and the experience of looking, she creates works that slow attention, emphasizing the charged interval where forms nearly connect and meaning remains open.
Mohnot's practice is informed by her South Asian heritage and life in the United States, where questions of place, memory, and material quietly shape an ongoing investigation into accumulation, tension, and becoming. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings and exhibited nationally, including at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA), Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Women & Their Work, ICOSA Collective, Torrance Art Museum, and the Research House for Asian Arts. She is currently a Lecturer in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University.
EDUCATION
2021 – 2023
MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2016 -2019
BFA, Summa Cum Laude, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
2010 - 2019
AA, Austin Community College, Austin, TX
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP
Member, ICOSA Collective, 2024 - present, Austin, TX
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Lecturer in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University, 2024 - Present, San Marcos, TX
Founder/Teacher– Creative Art Academy, 2019 - Present, Austin, TX
Art Teacher– Bee Caves Art Foundation,2023, Austin, TX
Teaching Assistant for “Contemporary Art + Criticism” - Michelle Grabner, 2023
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Teaching Assistant for “The Unpainted Picture” - Diana Guerrero Macia, 2023
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Teaching Assistant for “Time, Material and Everyday” - Stacia Yeapanis, 2022
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Teaching Assistant for “Stitch II” - Melissa Leandro, 2022
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Teaching Assistant for “Intro Fiber Material and Studies” - Kira Domingue, 2021
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
RESIDENCY
Digital Weaving Lab Artist in Residence, Praxis Fiber Workshop, 2025, Cleveland, Ohio
Kriti Gallery, 2024, Varanasi, India
PUBLICATION
Voyage Austin Magazine, https://voyageaustin.com/interview/check-out-monica-mohnots-story
Issue no. 180, New American Paintings, https://newamericanpaintings.com/issues/180
Shape Shift Show - https://artsandculturetx.com/gallery-row-a-seasonal-spotlight-on-six-texas-galleries-6/
Unformed - https://glasstire.com/events/2024/09/04/monica-mohnot-unformed/
Issue no. 168, New American Paintings, https://www.newamericanpaintings.com/issues/168
Surface Design - Unwinding / Unwound Exhibition Spotlight https://www.surfacedesign.org/unwinding-unwound-exhibition-spotlight/
Unwinding/Unwound – By Michelle Grabner, https://www.monicamohnot.com/publication
SYMPOSIUM/LECTURES
Artist Talk - Canvas Club Study Session at Kuta Arts Foundation, 2023, Ogun State, Nigeria
Artist Talk - Guest Artist Lecture, 2023, San Marcos, Texas
AWARDS/RECOGNITION
Dana Carter Memorial Teaching Assistantship, 2022, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
New Artist Society Scholarship, 2021
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
Induction into the Council of Scholars for high academic performance, 2019, Texas State University, San Marcos
Art Department Endowment Scholarship, 2018
Texas State University, San Marcos
“Best In Show”, Mercy 2018, Texas State University, San Marcos
Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017 Dean’s List
Texas State University, San Marcos
Invitation to join the Honor Society of
Phi Kappa Phi, 2018, Texas State University, San Marcos
Martin E. & Elizabeth Walling Turner Endowed Scholarship, 2018, Texas State University, San Marcos
RELATED EXPERIENCES
Strong as an acre of garlic, Artist Bryony Roberts assistance, 2019, San Marcos, TX - https://www.bryonyroberts.com/projects#/strong-as-an-acre-of-garlic/
Mural Project for 2019 Fuse Box Festival, Artist Nathan Green Randall assistance, 2019, Austin, TX
One of a Kind mural project, Artist Assistant, Texas State University, 2019, San Marcos, TX
PUBLIC COMMISSION
2025-2030 - Austin Public Art Project, Austin, Austin-BergstromInternational Airport, Austin, TX
ARTIST STATEMENT
CV
My practice approaches painting as a durational, layered field—one built slowly through weaving, stitching, painting, and collage. I construct the surface itself as the painting, designing and weaving the cloth from the ground up before adding paint, vinyl, dye, and embroidery. Through this process, time, attention, and repetition become embedded materially.
Visually, the work is composed of rounded, organic forms, interlacing lines, and dense proximities that suggest bodies, landscapes, or internal systems without resolving into fixed images. Color plays a central role in this tension, functioning as both surface and substance. Earthy greens, ochres, browns, and blues recur throughout the work, carrying a sense of familiarity and memory rooted in lived experience and place. Applied through paint, dye, vinyl, and thread, color becomes tactile—pressed, layered, stitched, and accumulated alongside the textures of fabric. Charged synthetic hues interrupt these fields, introducing vibration and pressure, as if the surface is holding more than it can release.
Smooth painted fields sit beside rough, stitched, or layered passages, creating surfaces that feel compressed, shifting, and unsettled. Painting becomes a space within a space—an atmospheric ground laid over woven structure that holds, interrupts, or resists the stitched line. Layering functions as both method and meaning: forms accumulate, hover, and nearly connect, emphasizing the space just before contact—where intensity builds but does not collapse. Through weaving’s repetitive under–over rhythm and embroidery’s slow tracing of edges, the work holds time as endurance and devotion.
My work engages with perception—how looking slows, how attention stretches, and how sensation intensifies through proximity and repetition. Drawing from ideas of the positive sublime and the erotics of presence, the work holds a charged interval before dissolution, where fullness is felt but resolution is withheld. With roots in South Asian Indian culture and based in the United States, my relationship to place, memory, and material quietly informs this pursuit, shaping a practice grounded in accumulation, tension, and becoming.
TWO-PERSON EXHIBITION
2026
Interwoven: Stories in Thread, Georgetown Art Center, Georgetown, TX
Towards a soft animism, ICOSA, Austin, TX
2025
Shape Shift | Grids and surfaces ICOSA, Austin, TX
SOLO EXHIBITION
2024
Unformed, The Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA), Lubbock, TX
2023
Where Do We Go From Here, Flex Space Gallery, San Marcos, TX
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS/EXPERIENCE
2025
Party Line – Tiger Strikes Asteroids, Greenville, SC
Letting The River Spill, Texas State Galleries, San Marcos, TX
Tryst Alternative Art Fair – Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
RV- Remote Viewing/Recreational Vehicle, Throughline Collective, Houston, TX, curated by Erin Dorn
2024
Red Dot Sale, Women and Their Works, Austin, TX
Summer Break, ICOSA, Austin, TX Curated by Kevin Ivester
re(FOCUS) Then & Now, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia, PA
12th Annual Bridgeport Art Center’s Art Competition, Bridgeport Art Center, Chicago, IL
2023
Big Medium Austin Studio Tour East,Austin, TX
Me in a(ME)rica, Root Division Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Unwind/Unwound, The Research House for Asian Arts, Chicago, IL, curated by Michelle Grabner
MFA Thesis Show, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL, curated by Gaylen Gerber
2022
101, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
Open Studios, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
2021
CAS 2-person show, Topaz, Austin, TX
The Art Home Show, ArtUs Co Gallery, Austin, TX
2020
“The Orange Exhibit”, The Artist’s Circle Gallery, Virtual Exhibit
Big Medium Artist Registry, Austin, TX
2019
“Everything That Matters”, Asian American Resource Center, Austin, TX
“Contemporary Works”, AO5 Gallery, Austin, TX
ArtStartArt, Online curated sale, artstartart.com
“Year Of The Pig” BFA Thesis Show, Texas State University,
San Marcos, TX
2016 - 2018
AVAA Summer Show, Austin Art Space, Austin, TX
ArtStartArt, Online curated sale, artstartart.com
Adjacent, Dahlia Woods Gallery, San Marcos, TX
All-Student Juried Exhibition juried by Natalie Bell, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
Concentric, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
Mercy, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
Darling Valentine, FASA Silent Auction, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
People’s Gallery, Austin, TX
Headwaters, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
Fall Invitational Showcase, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
AVAA Summer Show, Austin Art Space, Austin, TX
FASA fundraiser Show, 218 Studio Gallery, San Marcos, TX
ArtStartArt, Curated sale, Online
All-Student Juried Exhibition juried by Dominic Bolon, Richard Brown Baker, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
The New Works, Austin Art Space, Austin, TX
Faces of America, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
For Wheat Is Wheat, 218 Studio Gallery, San Marcos, TX
Pan-African community, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
Spring Invitational Showcase, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
Summer Invitational Showcase, Austin Community College, Austin, TX