COURTNEY‑GRACE’S
TRACK RECORD IS STACKED:
INDUSTRY-LEADING AGENCIES,
INTERNET-BREAKING WORK AT
PAPER MAGAZINE,
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED CAMPAIGNS, NUMEROUS AWARDS & COLLABS WITH SOME OF THE MOST CULTURE-DEFINING NAMES OF THE LAST DECADE.

JUST ASK:
ZENDAYA.
ISSA RAE.
MEGAN THEE STALLION.

But the résumé is only part of the story.

A rare mix of ease and electricity, Courtney‑Grace is an award-winning Creative Director, cultural critic and world-builder with a gift for recognizing the connection between things before culture has named it—then building the idea, image, platform or institution that allows everyone else to see it too.

Her creative instincts were formed long before “culture” became an industry buzzword. As a child, she watched her uncle direct music videos for Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Dogg, Master P and No Limit Records—giving her an early education in Black image-making, visual storytelling and creative self-expression.

The biggest lesson?

The right image doesn’t merely capture a moment.

It makes it iconic.

Today, Courtney‑Grace is a Creative Director at Droga5, where she spearheads culture-shaping ideas for some of the world’s most recognized brands. Previously, at PAPER Magazine, she developed original campaigns for Nike, Samsung, American Express, Uniqlo, Hulu, HBO, VH1, BET and more. She also created BOOKED x BUSY, an editorial franchise spotlighting Black-owned brands and entrepreneurs.

Courtney‑Grace doesn’t simply make work inside existing platforms. She creates new ones for what deserves to be seen.

That instinct led her to found the
MUSEUM OF NAIL ART.

Known as MoNA, the rotating fine-art exhibition and cultural platform uses nail art to celebrate Radical Black Beauty through a pop-culture lens.

But MoNA is not simply a museum about nail art. It is an intentional institution built around one uncompromising thesis:

BLACK WOMEN’S CREATIVE EXPRESSION, INNOVATION AND IMAGINATION SHOULD NEVER NEED PERMISSION TO SHOW UP.

They just should.

Courtney‑Grace is not asking for approval to call Black nail art fine art. She is recognizing what has always been true: the creative and cultural impact of Black and brown women has long shaped worlds far beyond the salon.

So why not turn that into forever?

THAT’S WHY MoNA EXISTS.
TO MAKE RADICAL BLACK BEAUTY UNMISSABLE.

Named a Culture Shifter of the Year by The CultureCon Collective and crowned Creative of the Year by The One Club and ADCOLOR, Courtney‑Grace also speaks and writes about creativity, counterculture and the forces shaping how we see ourselves, one another and the world.

Her expanding practice moves through advertising, beauty, music, fashion, entertainment, editorial, film and cultural scholarship—not as competing interests, but as different instruments inside the same composition.

Through emerging bodies of work, Courtney‑Grace is transforming her observations, fixations and lived experiences into critical essays, visual worlds and stories that turn the personal into a mirror.

At heart, she is creating work designed to outlive the moment: required reading, original stories headed for screens and bookshelves, and ideas intended to shape how we collectively see the world.