Paradise and monsters are imaginary but we should never underestimate the power of imagination. In the 15th Century, Europeans thought they had found the Paradise mentioned several times in scripture, but instead, they had arrived at the territories we know today as the American Continent. They wrote in their diaries and letters about their impressions of native people, plants, and animals; when encountering the unknown, they described giants, man-eaters, and headless men. Paradise was exotic, rich, exuberant, and generous; and the monsters that they imagined were terrifying sinners to them. There is no Paradise without Hell and these stories about monsters justified the horrific enterprise of colonization that came next. 

Cristobal Cea: No Monsters, No Paradise is an exhibition inhabited by modern post-colonial versions of those monsters. The Chilean, Boston-based painter and animator Cristobal Cea reimagines these Latin American creatures and invites them to inhabit the gallery space. The monsters walk anxiously, talk among each other, have singing battles, crack a few jokes, and make it through the day. They are not from here, but also not from there; they are imaginary, but also very real.    

Monsters walk around the gallery as 3D animations, they are surrounded by big paintings that, as backdrops, show their natural habitat: a dense Latin American forest. These creatures appear to us like ghosts and remind us of the dangers of building ideas about each other from misconceptions and false information. As humans we share the fear of the unknown, the exhibition explores these human complexities and contradictions and invites us to reclaim monstrosity as a transformative force that lives in us.