March 20, 2025
Fantastical Creatures and Where to Find Them
Caption: Jacobo and María Ángeles, Coyote-Fish, fiberglass and acrylic paint, 2024. Photo ©Scott Dressel-Martin. Artworks © Jacobo and María Ángeles.
On March 29, eight hybrid creatures will be making WildWoods their temporary home when Spirit Guides: Fantastical Creatures from the Workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles opens. These brightly colored fiberglass animals explore the concepts of tona and nahual, as inspired by the Zapotec calendar.
The artists have previously stated that, according to a Zapotec legend, when you are born an animal came to you to serve as your protector in this world. This animal is your tona, a being that shares your destiny and soul. Along with your tona, you also have a nahual, which is assigned based on the year of your birth. This spirit animal embodies characteristics that mirror your own personality.
From the Press Release:
The Ángeles team used this as an imaginative jumping-off point for their own interpretations of the calendar and zodiac while filling in the blanks with their own mythical creations. For example, cranes and camels are included in the exhibition but are not featured in Zapotec cosmology—instead, the artists chose to depict them for their dynamic shape and form.
Caption: Jacobo and María Ángeles, Rabbit-Deer, fiberglass and acrylic paint, 2024. Photo ©Scott Dressel-Martin. Artworks © Jacobo and María Ángeles.
The fiberglass sculptures included in the exhibit are monumental, at nearly eight feet tall and up to nine feet wide and four feet deep. They were created through a multistep process that includes conceptual sketches, renderings of small wooden sculptures, papier mâché molds and the final step of casting the fiberglass. Artisans at the workshop then paint the sculptures with colorful, intricate geometric patterns.
About the Artists
Jacobo and María Ángeles are a married artist team based in San Martín Tilcajete in Oaxaca, Mexico. Joyful, fanciful and distinctively patterned, the Ángeles’ animal sculptures embrace both contemporary art and folk-art traditions. With increasing demand for their works, the artists employ more than 100 artisans in a workshop that also acts as an art school, offering creatives the opportunity to advance and develop their artistic skills. The workshop’s creations have been exhibited in museums around the globe, including the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
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See Spirit Guides: Fantastical Creatures from the Workshop of Jacobo and María Ángeles when it opens on March 29, 2025, where it will fill WildWoods with bright color against a blooming spring background. This exhibit is included in General Admission tickets and will be on view through Aug. 3, 2025. It will also be available during after-hours events, like Fernbank After Dark and Fernbank…but Later (link when the page is re-published).
Fernbank is a nonprofit natural history museum, giant screen theater and old-growth forest, and is not affiliated with Fernbank Science Center, which operates as a division of DeKalb County Schools.
