Today, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, an agency of the State of Arizona, announced the hire of Gabriela Muñoz as Director of Grants. Muñoz will leave her current position with the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona later this month in advance of taking on her new role on April 6, 2026.
“We thank Gabriela for her thoughtful leadership, dedication to Southern Arizona artists and organizations, and for directing our Grants and Programs department for the past three years with such care and vision,” said Adriana Gallego, CEO for Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona. “Gabriela draws on her sensibilities as an artist to create just and fair ways to support fellow artists. She is consistently generous in her support and tireless in her fight for fair wages. Her approach is deeply equitable: artists are seen, made visible, and truly valued. She creates spaces where people feel comfortable and focuses on building real, lasting relationships. We are so grateful to have had Gabriela on our team.”
Muñoz’s departure from the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona will mark her return to the Arizona Commission on the Arts, where she previously held the position of Artist Programs Manager from 2016-2019.
“We are excited to welcome Gabriela back to the Arts Commission team,” said the state arts agency’s Executive Director, Christina You-sun Park. “As the Arizona Commission on the Arts approaches its 60th anniversary, the Director of Grants will play a crucial role in ensuring that our grant programs align with our new strategic plan, remaining relevant and responsive to the needs of an evolving and rapidly growing arts ecosystem.”
Gabriela Muñoz is an interdisciplinary arts administrator, educator and artist. Prior to rejoining the Arizona Commission on the Arts, she served as Director of Grants and Programs at the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona, where she administered American Rescue Plan Act funding in service of artists and non-profit organizations. During her tenure at Arizona State University, she served as Senior Project Manager at the Studio for Creativity, Place and Equitable Communities, where she directed the Projecting All Voices Fellowship, a program that fostered civic and social practices in design and the arts, and provided opportunities for artists and designers from underrepresented communities in academia.
Previously she served as Artist Programs Manager at the Arizona Commission on the Arts, leading the AZ ArtWorker place-based initiative, which facilitated dialogue and knowledge-sharing between Arizona artists, their national and international artist peers and residents of Arizona communities in Phoenix, Tucson, Tohono O’odham/Sells and the Douglas/Agua Prieta sister cities. She began her arts administration career at Phoenix Art Museum, serving as Curatorial Associate in the Contemporary Art and Latin American Art Departments.
With 20 years of experience working in the arts and culture sector, her professional expertise includes binational arts production, equitable program design, curation, exhibition management, grantmaking, and private-public partnership development. She is a 2025 NACO Heritage Alliance Fellow, a 2024 Latinx Artist Fellow, a 2024 United States Artist Fellow, recipient of the 2023 Phoenix Art Museum’s Scult Award, a 2020-2021 NALAC Catalyst for Change Award recipient, a 2019-2020 Mellon-Fronteridades Creative Scholar Fellow at the University of Arizona’s Confluencenter, and fellow of both the Intercultural Leadership Institute and NALAC’s Leadership Institute.
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About the Arizona Commission on the Arts
One of 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies across the United States, the Arizona Commission on the Arts is a 59-year-old agency of the State of Arizona and a leading force in the creative and professional development of Arizona’s arts sector. Through robust programs, research initiatives, and strategic grantmaking, the Arts Commission catalyzes arts-based partnerships that strengthen Arizona communities through the arts.
We imagine an Arizona where everyone can participate in and experience the arts.
The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and funding agency with a mission to advance the artistic expression, civic participation, and equitable economic growth of our diverse communities. Through forward-thinking, accountable leadership, the Arts Foundation works to affect systemic change that fosters an accessible, diverse, inclusive, and equitable local arts community.
As the designated local arts agency, the Arts Foundation provides arts and cultural development across Southern Arizona for individual working artists, artist collectives, ensembles, and nonprofit organizations through grant programs, professional development opportunities and public art program management for the City of Tucson.
The work of the Arts Foundation is made possible through generous support from the City of Tucson, Pima County, Arizona Commission on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, the Arizona Community Foundation, and individual donors. Our service area includes all counties and native sovereign nations South of the Gila River, including 372 miles along the US-Mexico international border in the South and along the 590-mile stretch of the Gila River, which flows west from the New Mexico border to the Colorado River.
About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation:
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty and empowerment that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and guided by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.
