Diego Montoya (artist)

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Diego Montoya
Born
Diego Montoya

born 1982 or 1983 (age 41–42)
Lima, Peru
NationalityAmerican
EducationFashion design, fine art
Years active2004-present
WebsiteDiegoLovesYou.com[1]

Diego Montoya (born 1982 or 1983 (age 41–42)) is an American

recycled materials, creating “larger-than-life”, “innovative”, and “subversive” installations and costumes for galleries, stores, and queer performers.[4]

Early life and education

Diego Montoya was born in

Miami, Florida when he was ten, and when he was fifteen he started going to the city's drag shows.[2][5]

In college, at

performance artist and actress Amanda Lepore, “She was all over my storyboards.”[2] Montoya gained experience designing for performers in school working with the college's circus, including his acrobat boyfriend; it “helped hone an aesthetic based on ‘savage beauty.’"[1] After graduating in 2004, he moved to New York City.[2]

Career

Early career: 2004-late 2000s

Montoya notes drag as a

onesies made of spandex “to take some pressure off myself by creating playful and maybe a little ridiculous aliases.”[3] He wore them exclusively for his first four years in the city, later shooting a series called Gay Superheroes, with them as the basis.[3] He says it was also dangerous to go out in drag during these times, but was mixing and collaborating with “amazing queer performers.”[2]

Initially when he moved to New York City, he worked in fashion for several years while freelancing in costume design.[3] One costuming project was for Clara's Nutcracker, a re-imagined abstraction of The Nutcracker from the protagonist's perspective “at age 6, 20, 40, 80 all happening at the same time performed at this former glass factory in Queens.”[3] The piece was from two friends, writer/director Josh William Gelb, and choreographed by Katie Rose McLaughlin.[3] He took a fluid approach with all four Claras in all white contrasted to the industrial surroundings.[3]

Installation art: late 2000s-mid 2010s

In the late 2000s he was hired full-time designing

recycled materials creating “larger-than-life,” “innovative, and subversive” installations and costumes for galleries, stores and “queer performers.”[4]

He cites this period as having the most growth artistically; taking weeks to construct, they were in “massive warehouses or abandoned theaters” and were usually collaborative efforts.

Leslie-Lohman Prince Street Project Space.[1]

In December 2015 he presented as part of “Superfine! House of Art and Design" at

Abrons Arts Center, Same Art Museum, 29Rooms LA, and Art Basel Miami.[6]

Collaboration with Sasha Velour for RuPaul’s Drag Race

In late 2016, a “popular Brooklyn queen,”

ninth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR), the show started airing in March 2017 with Montoya's designs as her entrance look.[2] Velour had fallen in love with Montoya's headpieces and masks that he would post on Instagram.[2][a] Montoya says, "I'm obsessed with things that are beautiful but in an aggressive way," noting many of his pieces are heavily ornamented.[1] "It's just what I'm naturally drawn to. I identify as a queer artist, and I think a lot of that visibility is campy and has a lot of things that I love, but is also aggressive."[1] Montoya builds on the character or persona a queen has created and designs with that in mind.[2] Vice noted Velour as a perfect muse for Montoya as she has a reputation for more cerebral drag— “taking the history of the genre and pulling it apart to reconstruct and move it forward”.[1]

For the finale, Velour contacted Montoya again, and they collaborated to create a red carpet entrance look, as well as an outfit for the competition performance. The entrance look was a “

cobalt gown with a corresponding Queen Elizabeth-esque ruff” based on Francis Ford Coppola’s 1991 film Dracula’s character Lucy Westerna, a vivacious beautiful young woman who falls victim to Count Dracula.[4] They had intended for shades of regal vampire red but had to change to colors that would not blend in with the theater’s background.[4] Later Velour would have Montoya deconstruct it and rework it “for a queen on the go.”[11]

For the performance they created an “ornate and beautiful,” but "kinda scary" white dress she wore for the winning performance.[2][12] Her ensemble included Montoya's tearaway and pearl “felt, lace, and hand-beaded mask held together by magnets that she cracked open like an egg to reveal her face.”[3][4] They attempted a futuristic egg effect as Velour had been called the Fabergé egg queen, it covered her entire head.[1] According to MTV News, Velour's “more baroque, performance art-inspired drag that had long existed off the show” was put on equal footing with more popular “campy or Insta[gram]-glamorous” drag forms.[2] The finale set a ratings record for VH1.[2] Out’s Coco Romack stated “without a doubt, [Velour will] go down in herstory as one of the most fashion-forward competitors” the series has seen.[4]

For Montoya, the finale outfit and performance brought in a “flood of requests” for his couture and increased his Instagram followers five-fold to over 10,000.

tenth season winner, Aquaria, with a Montoya-designed dress that invoked an alien version of Eve from the Garden of Eden.[13]

Further works, 2017-present

Montoya has since collaborated with more Drag Race queens including: “Ongina, Kameron Michaels, Asia O’Hara, Eureka O’Hara, Monét X Change, Pearl, Jinkx Monsoon, Blair St. Clair, Bob the Drag Queen, Kim Chi, Aja, Honey Davenport, and Soju.”[2] Montoya notes that when Drag Race started in 2009 the female illusion was more central to the queens look, passing as a woman was almost enough.[2] As of 2019, every aspect is exaggerated, with the custom garments costing from $2,000-10,000.[2]

In October 2017, Montoya's costumes were used for the world premiere of The Power of Emotion: The Apartment—“a trilogy of works that explores how we watch, hear, and perform emotion”—directed by Katherine Brook for the Tele-Violet company with the TAK ensemble at the

Abrons Arts Center.[14]

In October 2018 jazz singer-composer and bassist

human anatomy.[15][16] Each song was released on its own day, with a corresponding video; later she did a series of twelve pop-up concerts across the U.S. tied to each song.[17] She collaborated with other artists on various aspects of the video and live performances, and commissioned Montoya to do a series of dresses for the effort; the live shows were filmed for a concert release.[17]

In late 2018 Montoya again worked with Sasha Velour for her Smoke and Mirrors tour which started in Australia and New Zealand in January, and later throughout the U.S.[18][19] In it she revives a vaudeville-era conceit of something going wrong with the show, then having to go on with the show anyway—but with technology as the show is multimedia with live projection mapping.[18] For the first act Montoya designed a couture full bodysuit in red, and covered with jewels; each number has its own costuming, half in white velvet, that layers over the bodysuit, and scenery—projected onto the velvet pieces—layered on top.[18][20] In the second act, Velour's story is about her transforming and maturing, she wears another bodysuit that ultimately helps her morph into a tree from her childhood.[18][21] Velour stated, “all of the beautiful fabric choices, the way things move, and the way things sparkle in the light...those are the things that Diego is really passionate about, so he was able to improve upon my ideas in incredible ways.”[18]

As a first, Montoya designed

Them noted his influences as “the kitsch, excess, and color of Miami, where he was raised after moving from Lima, Peru, as well as the drag queens and club kids he encountered growing up.”[29]

In September 2019, Montoya's costumes were part of the world premiere of Joseph Keckler's Let Me Die, “a genre-bending performance” opera performed as part of Opera Philadelphia's O19 festival.[30]

For their work in the HBO series

Primetime Emmy Award
.

Notes

  1. ^ Velour stated, “Diego’s influence is as much his own Peruvian heritage as my Russian fantasy … but the result feels timeless — both futuristic and historical; deeply ornamented but also very graphic and simple; hugely varied but also consistent.”[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Street, Mikelle (July 2, 2017). "Sasha Velour's Fashion Designer Dishes on Her Daring 'Drag Race' Looks". Vice. Archived from the original on 2019-09-10. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Katz, Evan Ross (April 11, 2019). "Meet Diego Montoya, The Visionary Designer Behind Sasha Velour, Shangela, And Kameron Michaels". MTV News. Archived from the original on 2019-04-12. Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Imrie-Situnayake, Amber (Spring 2016). "Diego Montoya". Venison Magazine. Archived from the original on 2016-04-02. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Romack, Coco (July 17, 2017). "Meet the Designer Behind Sasha Velour's 'Futuristic Drag Monster' Fashion". Out. Archived from the original on 2017-07-18. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  5. ^ a b c Padgett, Tim (December 2, 2015). "Superfine! Bold New Satellite Show Adds To Little Haiti's Art Basel Attraction". WLRN. Archived from the original on 2015-12-05. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  6. ^ a b c "Artist Lecture: Diego Montoya". Carnegie Mellon University, College of Fine Art. 2018. Archived from the original on 2018-09-22. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
  7. OCLC 935987714.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  8. Indiewire. Archived
    from the original on 2019-10-19. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  9. ^ Martinez, Nicole (November 18, 2015). "Eight Artists to Watch During Miami Art Week". Miami New Times. Archived from the original on 2015-11-19. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  10. ^ Iadarola, Alexander (May 24, 2016). "Check Out the Most Eye-Popping Looks From the 2016 Brooklyn Nightlife Awards—and Find Out Who Won". Vice. Archived from the original on 2019-10-18. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  11. ^ Dresden, Hilton (June 28, 2018). "Sasha Velour Passes The Crown Tonight, But Her Reign's Only Just Begun". Out. Archived from the original on 2018-06-28. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  12. ^ Velour, Sasha (September 4, 2017). "Sasha Velour on Instagram: "Ep. 14 "It's Not Right, But It's OK" Lip-sync Dress and Mask: @diegomontoya3d with help from @madelinmusic Earrings: @ISLYNYC From the…"". Instagram. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  13. ^ Price, Lydia (June 29, 2018). "Sasha Velour Spills the Secrets of Her Out of This World RuPaul's Drag Race Season 10 Finale Look". People. Archived from the original on 2019-05-13. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  14. ^ "Abrons Arts Center to Present Tele-Violet's THE POWER OF EMOTION: THE APARTMENT". BroadwayWorld. October 11, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  15. ^ Kenny, Tom (7 January 2019). "Esperanza Spalding's "12 Little Spells"". Mixonline. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
  16. ^ "Esperanza Spalding". Esperanza Spalding. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  17. ^ a b "Esperanza Spalding's 12 Little Spells". 19th Hole Magazine. December 8, 2018. Archived from the original on 2019-10-15. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
  18. ^ a b c d e Nelson, Kelly Merka (October 14, 2019). "RuPaul's Drag Race Winner Sasha Velour to Open Showstopping Smoke and Mirrors Tour in San Antonio". San Antonio Current. Archived from the original on 2019-10-15. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
  19. ^ "Sasha Velour's Smoke & Mirrors to make London debut". Qweerist. June 26, 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-10-19. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  20. ^ DiGuglielmo, Joey (November 7, 2019). "Sasha Velour on her current tour, 'Drag Race' successors, life on the road and more". Washington Blade. Archived from the original on 2019-11-07. Retrieved November 8, 2019.
  21. ^ Saxena, Jaya (March 21, 2019). "Sasha Velour's New Show Unpacks The 'Magic Act' of Drag". Garage Vice. Archived from the original on 2019-10-15. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
  22. ^ a b c Glauert, Rik (February 25, 2019). "Shangela makes history as first-ever drag queen on the Oscars red carpet". Gay Star News. Archived from the original on 2019-03-07. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  23. ^ "OTT extravagance dominated the Oscars red carpet". Evening Standard. February 25, 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-02-26. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
  24. Yahoo. Archived
    from the original on 2019-06-11. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  25. ^ a b Street, Mikelle (February 25, 2019). "Shangela Talks Being the First Drag Queen at the Oscars". Out. Archived from the original on 2019-02-26. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  26. ^ Street, Mikette (February 24, 2019). "Shangela Just Walked the Oscars Red Carpet with Jenifer Lewis". Out. Archived from the original on 2019-02-25. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  27. Them. Archived
    from the original on 2019-10-19. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  28. ^ Fallon, Kevin (October 8, 2018). "The Drag Queen Lady Gaga Personally Cast in 'A Star Is Born'". The Daily Beast. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  29. Them
    . Retrieved October 19, 2019.
  30. ^ Sasanow, Richard (September 24, 2019). "BWW Review: Forget Brooklyn. Opera Philadelphia World Premieres Show Only the Dead Know Philadelphia". BroadwayWorld. Archived from the original on 2020-10-28. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
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