SANTA FE, NM.- Gerald Peters Contemporary announced Among Monsters, a group exhibition of artists whose works address and reinterpret mythological references. The thematic presentation will include paintings, sculptures, textiles, and works on paper from Nanibah Chacon, Esther Elia, Angelica Racquel, Gil Rocha, Peter Rogers, and Hank Saxe.

Throughout history, mythologies have provided explanations for humankind’s existential surroundings through collective beliefs and shared verbal and visual narratives. The artists included in this exhibition preserve and evolve this tradition, drawing on mythological references to explore identity, fear, nostalgia, and socio-political conditions.

Nanibah “Nani” Chacon (b. 1980) is a Diné (Navajo) and Chicana artist, most recognized as a painter and muralist. Her work, recognized for its unique style and attentiveness to site specific location and content, integrates socio-political issues that affect women and indigenous peoples.

Esther Elia (b. 1994) is an Assyrian-Irish artist from Turlock, California. Her interdisciplinary practice engages family folklore as the basis for understanding mixed ethnicity and the question of how to be Assyrian in diaspora.

Raised on la frontera, in Laredo, Texas, the now San Antonio-based artist Angelica Raquel (b. 1993) creates works that reflect the oral storytelling of her childhood. Using needle felting, rug-punching and watercolor, Raquel’s figurative and fantastical works illustrate these lores and showcase the connecting power of storytelling.

Gil Rocha’s (b. 1977) art practice in and out of his studio encompasses a variety of techniques, including assemblage, painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation. His work expresses the lexicon of the Mexican-American border and the many social/political issues that derive from it.

The great driving force of Peter Rogers’s (1933-2018) life was his deeply felt sense of spirituality. Likened to the work and writings of William Blake, Rogers sought enlightenment through his art. Allegorical in nature, Rogers’s paintings reflect the artist’s exploration of the connection between the spiritual and material worlds.

A resident of Taos, New Mexico since the early 1970s, Hank Saxe (b. 1950) has worked in industrial and commercial ceramic production, challenging his forms in scale and uniformity. Saxe credits the repetitive nature of ceramic production as the trigger of his subconscious manifestation of forms such as monsters, protective spirits, or neutral entities.