Are We Just Phantoms? explores horror as an examination of safety and vulnerability in the face of unstoppable forces. While traditional villains can be reasoned with, monsters—whether they manifest as vengeful spirits, human perpetrators, or oppressive societal forces—remain beyond negotiation or comprehension. Through their installations, the artists investigate how horror manifests in both psychological and physical forms.

Megan Solis's installation, Cockroaches Crawl, centers on her recurring character Glory West, a woman murdered by her husband Dale. The gallery space is transformed into a haunting environment built around Glory's absent body, featuring ritualized sculptures, sound, and sweet incense that draw viewers into an unsettling experience. Solis's work connects to a broader tradition of feminine spirits—particularly victims of male violence—who return seeking justice or revenge.

Sarah Fox transforms childhood fears into a space of reclamation, drawing inspiration from the Bloody Mary folklore that once haunted her youth. Rather than recreating the terror of a ghostly apparition in the mirror, Fox constructs what she terms "a space in between"—a vibrant environment filled with plants from her personal garden, bathed in pink light. This otherworldly jungle, surrounded by mirrors and accompanied by a sound piece, made in collaboration with JJ Lopez, invites viewers to confront their reflections and "call forth the shadow Mary." Through this immersive installation, Fox examines the archetype of the vilified woman while exploring themes of inherent power and its reclamation.

Jonesy probes the dark undercurrents of masculinity through an installation that subverts the innocence of dollhouse aesthetics. Three traditional dollhouse structures become vessels for video projections exploring male intimacy and power dynamics, while handcrafted Budweiser lamps evoke the familiar comfort of masculine spaces. Through scenes of apartment wrestling, cruising, and backroom encounters, Jonesy examines the complex intersection of fraternity, competition, and desire. The work creates an unsettling tension between domestic familiarity and the often hidden aspects of masculine identity, surrounded by carefully curated prints that amplify these themes of ritual and belonging.

Together, these three installations weave a compelling narrative about power, identity, and the specters that haunt our collective consciousness. From Solis's vengeful spirit and Fox's empowering reclamation of feminine mythology to Jonesy's examination of masculine vulnerability, each artist transforms Sala Diaz into a space where the familiar becomes uncanny. Through their distinct approaches to horror—whether supernatural, psychological, or social—they invite viewers to confront the phantoms that lurk within domestic spaces, cultural traditions, and gendered expectations. The result is an exhibition that doesn't merely frighten, but provokes deeper contemplation about the monsters we create, the powers we fear, and the identities we inhabit.

About Jonesy
Jonesy is an artist and filmmaker working in Los Angeles. He studied photography and video at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA. In the early ’90s, he was a member of the queercore band Fagbash in San Francisco. Since 2006, he has been creating films, music, installations, and performances. In 2015, Jonesy founded the collective die Kränken with a team of collaborators after doing research into the extensive collection of holdings of Southern California Gay Motorcycle Clubs at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries. In 2018, the group collaborated with Dr. Gayle Rubin on a film about early gay male leather subcultures in San Francisco. In 2019, Jonesy approached the artist Eileen Cowin about responding to her body of work, resulting in the exhibition Telling Them Apart shown at the California Museum of Photography in 2024. Jonesy’s work has been screened and shown at the Hammer Museum, Yale University, REDCAT, Oberhausen Film Festival, POPA Buenos Aires, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, UCR Arts, Artpace and the British Film Institute.

About Sarah Fox
Sarah Fox’s multi-media narratives and characters are created from embodied female experience. Stories of life, loss, sex and love are told through archetypical hybrid creatures. The resulting drawings, cyanotypes, and video works suggest a fairytale with an undercurrent of dark symbolism.

Her work has been shown throughout Texas, as well as in the Kinsey Institute (Bloomington, Indiana), Field Projects Gallery (New York, New York), Espacio Dörffi (Lanzarote, Canary Islands), Casa Lu (Mexico City), and Darmstädter Sezession, (Darmstadt, Germany). She has participated in artist residencies throughout the US including The Vermont Studio Center, The Women’s Studio Workshop, Wassiac Projects, and residencies abroad at Casa Lu in Mexico City, Residencia Nautilus in the Canary Islands, Atelierhaus Hilmsen in Hilmsen, Germany and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. She received an Individual Artist Grant from the City of San Antonio in 2021.

Fox lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. She received a BA from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas where she studied studio art and feminist theory. She received an MFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio. In addition to teaching at Texas A&M University, she runs an art and ecology summer camp for young artists in conjunction with the San Antonio River Foundation.

About Megan Solis
Solis’s work splinters and bleeds into drawing, sculpture, video, and performance. Postpartum from obtaining her MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Solis has authored and birthed her own heroine, Glory West, a love-sick blonde Texan, who navigates themes of desperation and loneliness creating concerts of unrequited lust, precarious displays of confidence and self-conscious portraits of love for her fans. Glory West’s odyssey encapsulates a monstrous feminine mystique, holding tightly to both self-inflicted hysteria and hapless horror. Solis has participated in the residency programs of Hello Studio Gallery (San, Antonio, TX) and Arteles (Haukijärvi, Finland). She has exhibited her work throughout Texas such as at the Mexic-Arte Museum (Austin, TX), Invisible Gallery, (Houston, TX), and the McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX). Solis has also shown nationally and internationally including the Freedman Gallery in Reading, PA, and the CICA Museum in South Korea. She has been invited to perform as Glory West at the  Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, TX, Artpace in San Antonio, TX, and Más Allá Gallery in Bogotá, Colombia. Most recently her film, “Dark Odyssey on Converse Lake” was selected to be shown at the 2023 Chroma Art Film Festival in Miami, Florida.