Denisse Monse (b. 2002) is an emerging artist born into a rural agrarian family in Jalisco, Mexico, who migrated to the United States in 2005. She learned the hard way who “El Norte” was from growing up in rural Tennessee, specifically between Livingston and Cookeville, TN. Her family were pioneer Hispanics and established the first Mexican restaurant in the town of Livingston, TN. She spent her childhood in her family's restaurants then began working there from a young age and still works there today. After graduating Cookeville High School, she went on to pursue a pre-med degree at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, since her local state school did not accept her due to her unauthorized legal status in the United States. Denisse is still undocumented, since she was brought to the United States as a child and no pathway has been open long enough for her to adjust her status. Despite thinking she would serve her community through a healthcare career she quickly realized her passion for art after taking a gen-ed art class in college and ended up graduating with a double major in Art Studies and Spanish in May of 2025. Her perspective and life experience as an undocumented immigrant in the United States inform her art practices as she works though materials and spaces through an experimental frame.