SANTA FE — Monsters have long been of interest to artists and non-artists alike. They embody our fears, uncertainties, and even desires. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the figure, in one form or another, is ever-present in an exhibition with monsters in the title. In the thematic group show Among Monsters at Gerald Peters Contemporary, artists Nani Chacon, Esther Elia, Angelica Raquel, Gil Rocha, Peter Rogers, and Hank Saxe embrace the frightening, the powerful, the fantastical, the mythological, and the cultural as manifestations of the monsters in our lives.
Filling the entire gallery, Among Monsters showcases one artist in each of the six rooms, allowing visitors to become engrossed in the theme. In particular, the sculptural works stand out, even when considered independent of the show’s theme. For example, Esther Elia’s new goddesses imbue large-scale figurative sculptures of women bodybuilders with the presence and posturing of the ancient Lamassu. “Miztanta Protective Deity” (2023), whose dimensionality is formed by flat planes of colorful Mexican tiles, stands mid-squat, jet back hair cascading in a stair-step fashion, hovering just above the bent knees and horizontal thighs of her four legs. In her work, Elia speaks to the experiences of Assyrians in diaspora, informed by notions of strength and of feeling safe or unsafe; with these monumental sculptures, she extends those ideas to incorporate the social media trend she was seeing of Assyrian women in her community posting gym selfies while bodybuilding and powerlifting.
One of the exhibition’s strengths is that its ideas are animated by viewers’ imaginations. I was surprised by how seeing Angelica Raquel’s six-foot-tall felted wool and poly fiber sculpture of a human-animal hybrid, titled “Cursed Spirit of Downtown Laredo” (2023), out of the corner of my eye had me a little unhinged — I’m convinced I saw it move. Raquel’s representations of folklore and accounts of her life in Laredo, Texas, are well served by the details of texture, color, and scale in her felted sculptures of animals, such as the deer head of “Árbol De Vida: El Monte” (2024), and her hooked rugs embellished with buttons, charms, silvered thread, glass beads, and tinsel-threaded yarn, as with “Javelinas Take Our Pumpkin Patch” (2024).
Imagination also plays a vital role in Hank Saxe’s selection of stoneware pieces from the 1990s. Saxe, who lives in Taos, New Mexico, has worked in ceramics for more than 40 years, including industrial and architectural projects, and he brings his practical expertise to his creative process. With titles like “Spanky,” “Switz,” “Petey,” and “Lunk,” these golem heads (or lumps of clay, depending on your perspective) sitting on pattern-painted pedestals, hint at the history of humans wrestling with the supernatural, and the subconscious.
Although drafted in reference to his own works, a portion of Saxe’s written statement for Among Monsters underscores the emotional tension of the entire show: “Whether they be monsters, protective spirits, or neutral entities, they are not far away from their maker.” The monsters, real or imagined, do not exist without us.
Among Monsters continues at Gerald Peters Contemporary (1011 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, New Mexico) through November 30. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
