Sierra Montoya Barela creates vibrant paintings of domestic interiors where everyday objects take on symbolic weight. Born in Colorado in 1993, Barela now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, where she explores the intersection of personal history and universal themes through still life compositions.

Barela’s practice combines painting, sculpture, collage, and printmaking to depict imagined domestic spaces. Her works reference both digital tools and traditional perceptual painting, transporting viewers to imagined spaces with fleeting moments laden with symbolic meaning that resonate on multiple levels.

Her background as a product designer for Urban Outfitters Home and West Elm Kids informs her keen curatorial eye for composition. The paintings feature exaggerated colours and clashing patterns that aren’t afraid to collide, with flattened perspectives that blur the line between a window and a painting hanging on a wall.

“How we create our home spaces is endlessly interesting, and there are a million different ways to create comfort,” Barela explains. “I like to give importance to the simple everyday objects that we live with.” Plants play a central role in her work, functioning almost as portraits. “We care for plants, we put them in our homes to make us feel good, we get them nice vessels to live in,” she says. The ornate tilework, clay objects, and decorative elements reference her Mexican heritage and Catholic upbringing.

Barela earned her BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2015 and was an Artist-in-Residence at the Vermont Studio Center and Horned Dorset Colony that same year. Her work has been exhibited at Post Gallery Zurich, Galerie Robertson Arès in Montreal, David B. Smith Gallery in Denver, and as part of the Octopus Initiative at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. In 2023, she created a mural in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Mural Arts.