In 2010, Kuriki-Olivo began her career under the pseudonym Puppies Puppies, maintaining a sense of mystery through shifting artistic styles and performing in costumes such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Gollum from The Lord of the Rings trilogy, or Lady Liberty. The artist draws upon the widespread recognition of these characters to create productive frictions between audience expectations and her new interpretations. Alongside these performances, Kuriki-Olivo has created installations that further her exploration of identity construction, evidenced in her 2015 exhibition Green (Ghosts) at Overduin & Co. in Los Angeles. The artist and her partner lived in the gallery at night, and vacated it during the day, all moving through a collection of yellow, blue, and green everyday objects arranged in the gallery. As the viewer moved through the residue of two people living in the gallery, they are called upon to imagine who the anonymous artist was based on the objects in the space: clothing hung on a rack, toiletries in a neat line on the floor,  two estrogen pills taped to the wall. Through these installations and performances, Kuriki-Olivo highlights the impact that popular culture and commodities have on how we understand ourselves and others. 

In 2017, Kuriki-Olivo appended her pseudonym with a new name, Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo, marking a shift in her practice toward the autobiographical and new explorations of identity, resistance, and transformation. In her 2018 exhibition, Andrew D. Olivo 6.7.1989 – 6.7.2018, the artist installed a field of grass in the gallery with a gravestone bearing her deadname, a name given to a transgender person at birth but which they no longer use or identify with. Expanding on the premise of Green (Ghosts), Kuriki-Olivo lived in a replica of her bedroom constructed at the New Museum in her 2023 exhibition Nothing New, where museumgoers observed her daily activities through a glass wall. As her work began to more directly engage her biography, Kuriki-Olivo worked to merge art and activism in her practice. She has organized free HIV testing in a museum, raised money or gender-affirming transition funds through the sale of her work, and hosted events like the Trans and Gender Non-conforming Resilience Gala and Awards to honor and celebrate her community. Throughout her work, the artist questions what art can be and challenges capitalist expectations of production, creating new space to consider how we construct our identities and communities.