Hello.

My name is Onyx Montes. I’m a social sculptor, writer, and pay transparency advocate exploring the intersections of art, labor, and community power.

I’m a 2025 OVAC Creative Projects Grant grantee, a 2024 recipient of the Artist Creative Fund, and an award-winning GoodWorld Journeys scholar, which supported my artistic research in Greece.

Recent projects include founding Tulsa Girl Power and launching Tulsa Hidden Heroines in collaboration with the Museum of Tulsa History; co-producing an educational video for the Frida Kahlo: Timeless exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum; writing about love and labor for the regional arts coalition MDW; teaching Critical Thinking & Writing with the Illinois Humanities Odisea Project; designing bilingual distance-learning programs for the Oklahoma City Museum of Art; and working as an adjunct lecturer at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I’ve taught art history and Mexican Muralism workshops inside two prisons in Mexico, and in 2023 I co-wrote Creativity is Boundless, an advocacy guide that supports artist-serving organizations in making fellowships, grants, and residencies more accessible, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. A selection of the museums I’ve worked with, awards I’ve received, and community projects I’ve led are represented below.

Outside of my work, I enjoy learning to work with tools and listening to Tom Waits on repeat. I’m also an avid traveler: I’ve solo-traveled to twenty countries and road-tripped across nine U.S. states.