Southwest Contemporary

EssayVol. 14 Alien

To be alien: Guest Juror Leslie Moody Castro

Leslie Moody Castro reflects on the slippery definition of “alien” through the artists featured in Southwest Contemporary Vol. 14: Alien.

The cover of Southwest Contemporary Vol. 14: Alien, the regional contemporary art magazine's fall/winter 2026-27 issue.
Southwest Contemporary Vol. 14: Alien. Cover art: Jess Johnson, Every Atom Made Flesh, left panel of triptych, 2018, pen, fiber-tip markers, acrylic paint, and gouache on paper, 41.5 x 88.5 in.

I have struggled with this short text. How does one write about what is alien? The definition is slippery and dependent on context: the reader, the perceiver, the world in a split second of time and place.

To be alien is to adapt to a changing world, like Jess Merritt, who turns the landscape and horizon into complex three-dimensional polyhedral structures folded and bent to create order. Or Hayley Krichels, who collages photographic explorations of her own body into flat and manageable, semi-scientific, geometric grids. To be alien means wrestling with the body. Chantal Lesley allows hers to be a site of upheaval and renewal, transformation and displacement. Marcus Xavier Chormicle offers access points to history, a document to process generational trauma and reincarnate stories that have been forgotten. To be alien is to exist in a real and mythical world at the same time, like Jess Johnson, whose cosmologies are filled with alien deities, worm-like forms, and cryptic symbologies. JR Roykovich accepts the unanswered phenomena within our present world, that which remains alien within our own accepted cosmology.

To be alien is to embrace otherworldliness in all its beauty and awkward decadence. Faye Lenore protagonizes what it means to exist between worlds, cultures, history, and perspectives. Kevin Sloan shows us a place where non-human animals become increasingly foreign in their environment, alien to their surroundings and beleaguered in belonging. Alienness can be melancholy like a dream. Adrian Pijoan gives us the Loch Ness Monster emerging from behind a bar, an alien taking a sip of a dirty martini, and a slow dance with Bigfoot. Please don’t pinch me, don’t wake me up. To be alien is to accept the precariousness of binaries, like Lauren(ce) Myers Reese, who layers identities and narratives.

When has binary ever really meant stability? To be alien is to embrace uncertainty.

The ten artists featured in ALIEN are:

Marcus Xavier Chormicle

Jess Johnson

Hayley Krichels

Faye Lenore

Chantal Lesley

Jess Merritt

Adrian Pijoan

Lauren(ce) Myers Reese

JR Roykovich

Kevin Sloan

Adrian Pijoan, Greys in My Bedroom, depicting digital alien figures in a bedroom
Adrian Pijoan, Greys in My Bedroom, 2023, archival pigment print from digital rendering and photography. Courtesy the artist.
Photograph by Hayley Krichels, Arms Like Trees
Hayley Krichels, Arms Like Trees, 2026, archival inkjet print from large format negative, 32 x 40 in. Courtesy the artist.
Still landscape image by Jess Johnson with Simon Ward, courtesy the artist.
Jess Johnson with Simon Ward, XYZZY, 2023, fulldome digital video with audio, 41:00. Courtesy the artist.

Leslie Moody Castro

Leslie Moody Castro is an independent curator and writer whose practice is based on itinerancy and collaboration. She has produced, organized, and collaborated on projects in Mexico and the United States for nearly two decades. She is committed to creating moments of exchange and dialogue within exhibitions, is a co-founder of Unlisted Projects Residency and Co-Lab Projects, and in 2022 served as inaugural curatorial fellow and curator-in-residence at New Mexico State University and Casa Otro Residency, respectively. She has curated several biennials across the American Southwest, was guest editor of Glasstire in 2021-24, and is the founder of AtravesArte.

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