Interview of Graciela Montich: Curator for CHROMA 2025 Art Show & Exhibition at Lucid Design District
- Nov 10, 2025
- 7 min read
The fifth successful year of the CHROMA Art Show and Exhibition is fast approaching, marking another major event within the frenetic energy of Miami Art Week. From December 3rd to December 17th, the Lucid Art Gallery will host CHROMA 2025: Vital Impulses in Contemporary Art, featuring the work of 22 international artists. We had the pleasure of interviewing curator Graciela Montich, who detailed the complex, year-long process of shaping a cohesive, multi-media exhibition. Montich, whose dual life as a corporate professional-turned-artist informs her disciplined approach, explains the unique appeal of CHROMA's hybrid format and why Miami remains the perfect "melting pot" for this celebrated show.
CHROMA 2025: The Vision
For those unfamiliar, what is CHROMA 2025, and what sets it apart from other art events during Miami Art Week?
CHROMA is a contemporary art exhibition that every year, within the framework of Art Basel, transforms Lucid Art Gallery in Miami Design
District into an art fair. CHROMA presents a careful selection of
artists and their works displayed throughout the gallery, presented as a group art fair. The strategic location of Lucid Art Gallery in Miami Design District attracts an international audience of collectors, curators and art
lovers. After four successful and consecutive editions, CHROMA Art Show and Exhibition has perpetuated itself within the artistic calendar of the city.
Unlike other art fairs that take place during Art Week Miami, the hybrid
format of CHROMA brings to art lovers a curated exhibition and an art fair experience, making it a unique meeting point, where the vibrant energy of Art Week Miami coexists with the intimacy and excellence of a carefully
designed show.
This year’s theme is “Vital Impulses in Contemporary Art.” What inspired it, and what should visitors expect?
The curated selection of artworks included in CHROMA 2025 is inspired by a possibility of generating a collective force that brings together artistic expressions and their intensity, vulnerability, and transformative power, uniting the energies of all the artists featured in the exhibition. Visitors should expect to be pleasantly surprised and inspired. Each work of art on display serves as a gateway into the inner world of its creator, inviting the audience on a sensory and emotional journey that connects the art, the artist, and the viewer universally. Audiences can expect to be delighted to see creations that spark conversations and imagine transformed interiors. Artists have created new bodies of work for CHROMA 2025 and our selection of art pieces is geared towards the collectors who enjoy a fine palette for art.
With 22 artists featured, how did you select the works and shape them into a cohesive exhibition?
Our search for art and artists starts more than 12 months in advance of the Show. For CHROMA 2025, we started our search before the previous calendar year concluded. We started with seeking works that are articulated under the notion of "life impulses". We looked for artistic expressions that mobilize, transform and intensify existence. We identified works that are capable of awakening in the viewer an emotional, intellectual and a sensory reaction. We selected artists who transmit strength through their art and whose works seek deeper revelations. We chose contemporary art and artists for CHROMA 2025 whose art mirrors the rapid, widespread, and often uncontrollable dissemination of content on the internet. This includes both the art itself and the way the art is created and circulated. Rather than being a formal movement, it is an artistic tendency or an impulse that has emerged and has subsequently shaped into a cohesive exhibition.
CHROMA has become a major part of Miami Art Week. How do you see its role growing within the local and international art scenes?
After four successful annual editions, the key factor that strengthens our position in the market is the steady increase of art collectors who connect with the works presented at CHROMA and where they find that perfect piece that speaks to them. Lucid Art Gallery in Miami Design District is the home of the CHROMA Art Show and Exhibition and is one of hundreds of galleries in Miami; yet thousands of collectors and art lovers from around the world visit the gallery during this important week in Miami. Each year, our audience has inspired us with their openness, rising attendance, and the positive critical response to the professional quality and relevance of the artworks that we showcase at CHROMA.
The Selection Board of Lucid works around the year with a clear purpose: to present fresh and innovative art that surprises, moves, and inspires the audience through strong creative vision. Lucid Art Gallery now expands the reach of our participating artists and their artworks by continuing to showcase all works presented during CHROMA in a gallery setting, well after the completion of Art Week Miami.
The exhibition spans multiple mediums—painting, sculpture, kinetic art, and more. How do these different forms work together within the space?
Each artistic expression brings a unique energy, amplifying the overall experience for the viewer. Traditionally, the so-called “fine arts” include painting, sculpture, architecture, music, dance, literature, and cinema. All are creative expressions with aesthetic, symbolic, or communicative purposes that enrich culture and move human emotions. At Lucid Design District, we seek precisely this diversity: works that through VITAL IMPULSES, reveal what moves and transforms each artist. The 22 selected artists present their ideas, emotions, perceptions, and inner experiences in tangible forms, using different media to establish an open dialogue with the world. We are living in a time with flexible rules, where creative freedom opens the field to endless possibilities. This plurality, rather than fragmenting, creates a shared space where differences complement and enrich one another.
The Art of Curating
What’s the biggest challenge when curating a show of this scale?
The greatest challenge in curating an exhibition of this scale is, without a doubt, the collaborative work it requires. The process involves the Gallerist, the gallery’s Selection Board, and the Curator. Many ideas are debated, perspectives are shared, and eventually a common objective is defined, an objective that the Curator then translates into action. For me, as the Curator of CHROMA 2025 the most fascinating part is having the freedom to build a narrative, almost like a film, where the artists become the actors and the artworks form living dialogues that give meaning to the entire exhibition.
How does your own experience as an artist influence your
curatorial decisions?
My experience as an artist certainly influences my curatorial decisions, but I approach both roles in very different ways. When I work on my own art, I feel the need to express inner experiences; whereas in curating, I must do the opposite, set aside my own perspective in order to enter someone else’s world. In a solo exhibition, this means getting to know the Artist deeply, learn their story, understand their universe, and read their thoughts. In group shows, the challenge becomes even greater, as it requires
weaving together multiple narratives into a unified whole.
This is why I try to separate my time: there are days that I dedicate to being an Artist, and other days I fully embrace the role of Curator, always striving to maintain an objective perspective that gives true prominence to the artists and their work.
You've curated exhibitions for galleries and foundations. What’s different about your role with Lucid Design District and CHROMA?
The main difference is that CHROMA has established itself as a classic show within the Miami Art Basel season. Unlike other exhibitions that I have curated in galleries and foundations, CHROMA takes place every year following the same typology, yet it acquires unique characteristics through its format and scope. More than just an exhibition, it is an art show that stands out for the physical space where it unfolds within Lucid Art Gallery in Miami’s Design District, the large number of participating artists, and the curatorial vision that weaves all these voices into a unified narrative.
A Personal Look
You spent 25 years in the business world before moving fully into art. How did that transition shape your career and perspective?
Transitioning from Corporate America fully into art has been a welcoming change that allows a freedom of a different type. The freedom to experiment, to create, to make and break, to learn, unlearn, and re-learn. What I bring with me from the corporate world is discipline and the ability to execute, while playing in a very creative field and sharing the space and energy with fellow artists.
Why was Miami chosen as the home for CHROMA 2025?
Miami is a melting pot of artistic expressions. Inspiration exists everywhere in this city and it embraces art and artists; neighborhoods welcome artistic expressions; and artists thrive in expressing their artistic vibes in Miami. This city welcomes hundreds of thousands of art lovers from around the world during Art Week every year. There could not be a better venue for CHROMA.
Your artwork often explores the human connection to nature. How does that theme influence your curatorial approach?
My artistic practice and curatorial approach stem from nature as a
primordial source of inspiration. I am especially interested in the way
human beings connect with it, that profound bond which, despite cultural and technological shifts, remains a universal thread. As a Curator, I
believe that every artistic expression whether abstract, kinetic,
conceptual, or figurative, resonates in nature. Nature is both the origin and a mirror; everything within it offers a form, a rhythm, or a movement that artists reinterpret. My curatorial role seeks to highlight these
correspondences and create experiences that remind viewers that we are part of the same fabric.
Exhibition Dates:
12/3/2025 – 12/17/2025
Opening Reception: 12/3, 4pm – 7pm