Artist Elton Monroy Duran builds community, tells story of Mexicans in southwest Detroit

Kimberly P. Mitchell, Detroit Free Press
Updated ·3 min read
Elton Monroy Duran, 45, of Detroit, walks through Xochj’s Mexican Imports looking at Diá de Los Muertos figurines on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Duran says the goal of his conceptual art his to create a visibly Mexican identity that inspires respect and amplifies the Latin voices within the community. “” And the thing is, instead of recognizing the identity of this place (southwest Detroit), you know, they're starting to push the agenda of that it’s a diverse community,” says Duran, “What are you talking about, a diverse community? The world is diverse, but this community, you know, is full of Mexicans.”

Elton Monroy Duran stands in the lobby entrance of Newlab Detroit’s headquarters in the historic Book Depository, gazing down at the polished concrete floor where innovation and technology intersect. Duran, a conceptual artist, has partnered with Youth Tank Detroit to create a mural of the Detroit neighborhood model hub of mobility they plan to build during the first Detroit Youth Mobility Summit. The summit is asking Detroit youths to dream what their community could look like in the future. A former Kresge Arts fellow, Duran fits right in with the dreamers who can see beyond the limitations of reality to imagine a world they want to live in.

Elton Monroy Duran, 45, of Detroit, right, meets with members from Youth Tank Detroit, who he is working on a project with to make a mural based off of a mobility project made during the Detroit Youth Mobility Summit at Newlab Detroit at the historical Book Depository next to Michigan Central Train Station in Corktown, Detroit on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Holly Arida, left, of Duran, brought him onto the project after working with him on a project at the Cranbrook Institute.
LEFT: Elton Monroy Duran shows a teaser of a documentary he is making about his recent art project making Alebrijes with Jace Danielewicz, who he has worked with in the past, during a planning meeting for the Detroit Youth Mobility Summit where he will be creating a mural of a mobility hub with young people on Tuesday, March 5, 2024. RIGHT: Elton Monroy Duran, 45, of Detroit, meets with members of YouthTank Detroit to plan for a mural he will be making.

Detroit resident Duran, 45, has always been a dreamer. At 14, working with his dad in the family car repair shop in Tula, Hidalgo state, in Mexico, he dreamed of becoming a painter. With $50 from his mother, Duran came to Detroit to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. But he didn’t plan to stay here. Duran planned to do gig work with a friend of his father's to save up money for a move to Berlin. “But then when I came to Detroit, I was surprised,” said Duran, “One of the things that was kind of like a surprise to me, was coming into this community, into southwest Detroit … because when I was actually thinking about Detroit, I was not thinking about Mexicans.”

Elton Monroy Duran, 45, walks past the mural he painted of Frida Kahlo on the wall of Xochj’s Mexican Imports in Mexicantown, Detroit, on March 5, 2024. Duran plans to place his Alebrijes on the curbs along Bagley Street, right outside these businesses, in hopes of creating more of a sense of community celebrating their Mexican heritage.
Elton Monroy Duran, 45, walks past the mural he painted of Frida Kahlo on the wall of Xochj’s Mexican Imports in Mexicantown, Detroit, on March 5, 2024. Duran plans to place his Alebrijes on the curbs along Bagley Street, right outside these businesses, in hopes of creating more of a sense of community celebrating their Mexican heritage.

Zaragosa Vargas writes in "Life and Community in the 'Wonderful City of the Magic Motor': Mexican Immigrants in 1920s Detroit" that 3,000 Mexican immigrants lived in Detroit by 1920. Thousands were brought into Michigan by sugar companies in 1915 to work on beet farms, and at the end of World War I, those immigrants found work in the car factories of Studebaker, Packard, Dodge and Ford.

Mexicantown's Murals

Duran said he discovered a vibrant community that sometimes felt invisible in Detroit, underrepresented. “So then I saw this community as my canvas,” said Duran. Using a grant from the Knight Foundation, he created a series of murals depicting the businesses and people that tell the story of southwest Detroit. Gloria Rocha, 77, of Ballet Folklorico Raices Mexicanas of Detroit, says she remembers when Duran pitched the mural at Plaza del Sol to community volunteers in 2020. The community center found a partner in the Ideal Group, a manufacturing business started by Frank Venegas Jr. in 1979, to help pay for their portion of the mural. The Ideal Group is committed to supporting the community, located in the heart of southwest Detroit. Rocha said she and Duran became friends after that. “I think Elton works hard, and he puts his heart and soul into everything he does.”

Elton Monroy Duran, 45, of Detroit, works on a giraffe Alebrijes he is making out of automobile parts in his garage studio in Detroit on Feb. 8, 2024. Duran repaired cars with his father in the family business growing up in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico and uses his knowledge of vehicles to sculpt the Alebrijes, mystical, vibrant Mexican creatures of the spirit world.
LEFT: Artist Elton Monroy Duran spray-paints the rib cage of his mythical tiger Alebrijes made from an automobile grille with neon yellow paint. Alebrijes are brightly colored Mexican folk art sculptures of fantastical (fantasy/mythical) creatures usually carved from wood. No two alebrijes are alike, giving the spiritual animal its own unique traits and personality. Duran says he learned how to work on cars with his father, growing up in Tula, Hidalgo, in Mexico. RIGHT: Elton Monroy Duran cuts out panels of metal from a car fender to build his Alebrijes in his garage.
Elton Monroy Duran welds panels of metal with marbles together on the giraffe Alebrijes he is sculpting out of automobile parts on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024. Duran talks about how the auto industry influenced a lot of things in the consumer industry including toys for kids, which is why he uses them in his art. Duran says when he thinks about his project he tries to think beyond the materials. “It's like more about what I am communicating, you know, like, I want to spark conversation,” says Duran.

Duran says working hard, being supportive and empathetic is a part of his Mexican heritage. Duran says he was influenced by Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and he wanted to show the unseen Mexican workers that helped build the cars of the 1920s. “He was commissioned to paint the greatness of the industry. And what did he do? He painted the workers as the main subject. Without humans, technology would be nothing,” said Duran, of Rivera's work.

Elton Monroy Duran, 45, is a conceptual artist living in southwest Detroit and works out of his garage sculpting metal into what he calls the Alebrijes of the Motor City, on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024. Alebrijes are brightly colored Mexican folk art sculptures of fantastical, mythical creatures and Duran’s are made from auto parts that shaped the auto industry. Duran is making a connection between the Mexican workers that contributed to the car industry in the 1920s and the growth of the auto industry, like the Model T.

The Rivera murals gave him the idea to sculpt his current project, “Alebrijes” —magical, shapeshifting creatures with roots in Oaxacan culture and influenced by Pedro Linares Lopez’s papier-mache figures — using auto parts from the Model T, Model A and other vehicles that shaped an industry. Duran plans to place the fantastical Mexican creatures all over Mexicantown this spring, made possible through the city of Detroit commercial corridor revitalization project.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Elton Monroy Duran expresses Mexican heritage through art in Detroit