Mónica Bachué is a Colombian-American artist, fashion designer, and advocate whose work redefines beauty standards and empowers individuals to embrace their uniqueness. Born with a cleft lip, she transformed her personal journey into a global movement—using art, fashion, and storytelling to promote self-acceptance.

Through her contemporary art and her fashion brand Leporinos, Mónica celebrates the beauty of difference and reminds us that a condition is not a destiny but a canvas for art, pride, and identity.


BIO

Early Life and Cultural Roots

Born in Cúcuta, Colombia, and raised in the Andean town of Pamplona, Mónica grew up surrounded by mountains, culture, and textile traditions. Her father, a former teacher turned technician, and her mother, a self-made entrepreneur, taught her the value of education and perseverance.

Pamplona’s knitting heritage and her family’s creativity shaped her artistic sensibility. As a child, she designed clothes from fabric scraps for her dolls—a small beginning that foreshadowed a lifelong passion for design.

Born with a cleft lip and palate, Mónica underwent 13 reconstructive surgeries. What could have been a limitation became the foundation of her strength and purpose. Her mother’s insistence that “hiding was not an option” instilled the confidence that now defines her artistic identity.

Mónica Bachué is a Colombian-American artist, fashion designer, and advocate whose work redefines beauty standards and empowers individuals to embrace their uniqueness. Born with a cleft lip, she transformed her personal journey into a global movement—using art, fashion, and storytelling to promote self-acceptance.

Through her contemporary art and her fashion brand Leporinos, Mónica celebrates the beauty of difference and reminds us that a condition is not a destiny but a canvas for art, pride, and identity.


Education and Creative Evolution

Mónica first pursued a career in law, graduating from Santo Tomás de Aquino University in Bucaramanga and completing further studies in legal mediation and international transportation law in Bogotá.

After relocating to the United States, she reignited her childhood dream and enrolled at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles, specializing in knitwear design—a tribute to her Colombian roots. There, drawing and illustration became her bridge between art and emotion, leading her to develop her signature aesthetic that blends textiles, portraiture, and storytelling.

Mónica Bachué is a Colombian-American artist, fashion designer, and advocate whose work redefines beauty standards and empowers individuals to embrace their uniqueness. Born with a cleft lip, she transformed her personal journey into a global movement—using art, fashion, and storytelling to promote self-acceptance.

Through her contemporary art and her fashion brand Leporinos, Mónica celebrates the beauty of difference and reminds us that a condition is not a destiny but a canvas for art, pride, and identity.


From Law to Design: Finding Her Voice

Her entrepreneurial journey began in Colombia with her first boutique, Velazca, which later evolved into Leporinos—the world’s first fashion brand inspired by cleft lip and palate.

The name Leporinos, derived from the Latin word for “hare-lipped,” was reclaimed as a symbol of empowerment. Her first illustration—painting her own cleft lips—went viral, transforming her art into a movement.

Through Leporinos, Mónica merges her art, Colombian craftsmanship and modern design, reviving local knitting traditions while amplifying a global message of inclusion.

Mónica Bachué is a Colombian-American artist, fashion designer, and advocate whose work redefines beauty standards and empowers individuals to embrace their uniqueness. Born with a cleft lip, she transformed her personal journey into a global movement—using art, fashion, and storytelling to promote self-acceptance.

Through her contemporary art and her fashion brand Leporinos, Mónica celebrates the beauty of difference and reminds us that a condition is not a destiny but a canvas for art, pride, and identity.


Career and Artistic Achievements

Mónica’s designs have been worn by the Former First Lady of Colombia, singer Sebastián Yatra, and fashion icon Kika Rocha, and featured at prestigious venues including:

  • The French Ambassador’s residence, Bogotá
  • Operation Smile’s NYC Gala and international missions
  • Museum of Modern Art Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar

Her work has been exhibited in Colombia, New York City, and Milwaukee, where her portraits of faces—distorted, stitched, or reimagined—invite viewers to confront the meaning of beauty and imperfection.

Mónica Bachué is a Colombian-American artist, fashion designer, and advocate whose work redefines beauty standards and empowers individuals to embrace their uniqueness. Born with a cleft lip, she transformed her personal journey into a global movement—using art, fashion, and storytelling to promote self-acceptance.

Through her contemporary art and her fashion brand Leporinos, Mónica celebrates the beauty of difference and reminds us that a condition is not a destiny but a canvas for art, pride, and identity.


ART STATEMENT

The Beauty of Uniqueness

Mónica’s art is both visual and philosophical—a dialogue between the body, identity, and social perception. Each portrait becomes a mirror of human resilience, exploring how scars, differences, and imperfections are sources of truth and beauty.

Her practice combines acrylic, graphites, textiles, inks, and illustration, merging her backgrounds in fashion and fine art. Inspired by thinkers such as Arthur Danto and Judith Butler, she challenges standardized notions of beauty, showing that our individuality is the most authentic form of art.

“A condition is not a destiny—it’s a canvas for pride and art.”

Inspired by Arthur Danto’s idea that “art is the mirror that returns the gaze of our cultural identity” (The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, 1981), the artist reconfigures the human face through plastic arts, exploring textures, colors, and distortions that not only evoke an empathetic perspective but also question pre-established notions of perfection.

Bachué employs mixed techniques—sculpture, acrylic on canvas, illustration, inks, and layered textures—to embed personal stories within her works. These portraits do not merely replicate what a camera might capture; instead, they reveal the emotional and lived essence of the subjects. As Slavoj Žižek argues in The Fragile Absolute (2000), “what we see in the face of the other is our own fragility reflected,” a notion that guides every brushstroke and artistic decision in her work.

Mónica Bachué is a Colombian-American artist, fashion designer, and advocate whose work redefines beauty standards and empowers individuals to embrace their uniqueness. Born with a cleft lip, she transformed her personal journey into a global movement—using art, fashion, and storytelling to promote self-acceptance.

Through her contemporary art and her fashion brand Leporinos, Mónica celebrates the beauty of difference and reminds us that a condition is not a destiny but a canvas for art, pride, and identity.


Solving Problems Through Art

Rather than viewing deformity as something to be corrected, Mónica reframes it as a visual and social opportunity to question prejudice. Her textured portraits—woven, stitched, and layered—encourage empathy and redefinition of what we consider beautiful.

Each work becomes an act of resistance, a call for inclusivity, and a testament to the idea that difference is our greatest aesthetic asset.

Mónica Bachué is a Colombian-American artist, fashion designer, and advocate whose work redefines beauty standards and empowers individuals to embrace their uniqueness. Born with a cleft lip, she transformed her personal journey into a global movement—using art, fashion, and storytelling to promote self-acceptance.

Through her contemporary art and her fashion brand Leporinos, Mónica celebrates the beauty of difference and reminds us that a condition is not a destiny but a canvas for art, pride, and identity.


Life and Art: A Continuous Dialogue

The artist’s life is deeply intertwined with her work. Born with a cleft lip, her personal experience has been a constant driving force in her artistic practice. This biographical connection imbues her work with authenticity and urgency. As Roland Barthes explains in Camera Lucida (1980), “every work that profoundly affects the viewer carries within it the punctum, the wound that pierces the artist.” For Mónica Bachué, the punctum is not only her personal experience but also the empathy she conveys by making visible the stories that are often silenced.

Her work also engages with Judith Butler’s ideas on performativity, asserting that identity is neither static nor singular but rather an ongoing construction negotiated between the individual and society (Gender Trouble, 1990). In her art, the face—particularly the scarred face—becomes a symbol of resistance against dominant social narratives that dictate what deserves to be seen.

Mónica Bachué is a Colombian-American artist, fashion designer, and advocate whose work redefines beauty standards and empowers individuals to embrace their uniqueness. Born with a cleft lip, she transformed her personal journey into a global movement—using art, fashion, and storytelling to promote self-acceptance.

Through her contemporary art and her fashion brand Leporinos, Mónica celebrates the beauty of difference and reminds us that a condition is not a destiny but a canvas for art, pride, and identity.


The Artist

Mónica Bachué is a Colombian-American artist, fashion designer, and advocate whose work redefines beauty standards and empowers individuals to embrace their uniqueness. Born with a cleft lip, she transformed her personal journey into a global movement—using art, fashion, and storytelling to promote self-acceptance.

Through her contemporary art and her fashion brand Leporinos, Mónica celebrates the beauty of difference and reminds us that a condition is not a destiny but a canvas for art, pride, and identity.