Among Monsters: Esther Elia

Evan Feldman
Director
efeldman@gpgallery.com

Allie Skupin
Associate Director
askupin@gpgallery.com

Opening reception: Friday, September 13, 5-8pm

Gerald Peters Contemporary is pleased to announce 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 Nani Chacon, Esther Elia, Angelica Raquel, 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.

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.

The figures in “Among Monsters” imagine the children and grandchildren of the Assyrian pantheon birthed in diaspora to care for our people as we navigate new places. These “new goddesses” are inspired by materials and aesthetics of our new environments, while maintaining a connection to our homeland, culture, and art practices. They recognize the difficult dance of diaspora, and whisper to us that not all change is assimilation – some of it is growth.

The objects in this show are all rooted in the desire to be protected from the monsters that seek to harm us. Monumental sculptures that echo our ancient Lamassu in size and stature are remixed to portray female bodybuilders – a play on the fertility statuettes we carried around with us in the past. Deities with divine and blocky musculature evoke protective jewelry, colors, and stones we wore. They are an answer to the destruction of Assyrian artifacts by ISIS, and even more devastating, they cry out for the voiceless Assyrian women stolen from their homes and trafficked into forced marriages and sex slaves for ISIS members. They are amulets for all those rebuilding their lives in the new and old countries, living among monsters.

Esther Elia

Malikta Protective Deity 2023
Mexican tile, grout, epoxy, cement board, and plywood
96 x 96 x 36 inches

INQUIRE

Esther Elia

Miztanta Protective Deity 2023
Mexican tile, grout, epoxy, cement board, and plywood
96 x 96 x 36 inches

INQUIRE

As you enter this space, remember the times you were strong.
As you view the female deities, think of the times you were protected.
As you indulge in the color, the paint, the tile, remember the joy of my country.
Remember Assyria, in all her splendor. In all her beauty.
She is strong. She protects.
She lives within her children in the far corners of the earth, and in all the lands that we fled to.