Here's the Best Art We Saw in September

September art shows around metro Phoenix confirmed that artists find inspiration in everything from fictional monsters to real urban wildlife.

Many of our favorite works were created by well-known artists right here in our own community, including Patricia Sannit, Larry Madrigal, and Monica Aissa Martinez. But some hail from other places, including Australia.

Here's a look back at September's highlights at local museums, galleries, and other art spaces.

The Child of Love and Light (after Richard Rothwell's portrait of Mary Shelley, 1840)
For a juried exhibition titled "Frankenstein in the 21st Century: The Waking Dream, 200 Years Later," David Dauncey created a mixed-media image inspired by the 19th-century novelist who penned the famed tale. Presented by Scottsdale Public Art, it continues through December 30 inside The Gallery at Scottsdale Civic Center Library.

Coyote-Urbano
When artist and curator Nicole Royse decided to open her own gallery called Royse Contemporary, she chose a Scottsdale location near Tilt Gallery and Lotus Contemporary. And she selected the small group of artists whose work would comprise her first exhibition in the new space, including Monica Aissa Martinez. Her casein-and-egg tempera coyote on canvas was inspired by an actual urban coyote encounter.

Tucson Sector 2001-2002
In 2007, Jody Ipsen started the Migrant Quilt Project, which creates quilts memorializing people who've died during migrant journeys in the Southwest. This piece, created by Cornelia Bayley of Green Valley, Arizona, was part of the recent "What the Eye Doesn't See Doesn't Move the Heart" exhibit at Tempe History Museum.

In Search for the American Dream
Artist Janet Diaz, a first-generation Mexican-American based in Phoenix, centers her art practice around migratory issues along the U.S.-Mexico border. This sculpture was featured in the recent "To Live Without Borders" exhibition at Modified Arts.

Sun Mat
This large-scale painting, created by artist Regina Pilawuk Wilson, using synthetic polymer paint on canvas, is part of an exhibition called "Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists From Aboriginal Australia," which continues through January 21, 2018, at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.

Happy Waitress
For an exhibition titled "Larry Kornegay/New Work," the Phoenix artist and designer created two- and three-dimensional work inspired by the natural world, including this pencil and latex paint on Masonite piece. The exhibition continues through January 7, 2018, at the Ottosen Gallery at Desert Botanical Garden.

Phantasmagoria
This animated video trilogy by Ranu Mukherjee, which was inspired by ancient Chinese myth, is part of the "Soul Mining" exhibition that runs through December 30 at ASU Art Museum. Mukherjee's piece explores "the story of gold and its impact on natural resources, labor, and shifting international economic power," including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

The Dance (La danza)
This installation by Phoenix Artist Patricia Sannit was part of "Rise Fall Rise," her recent solo exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum. Sannit, who received the prestigious Arlene and Morton Scult Contemporary Forum Artist Award at Phoenix Art Museum in 2016, is currently working on an artist catalog which will include this work.

Inseparable
A recent exhibition titled "Eyes on Us" featured work by Larry Madrigal and Tyler Griese. It included this oil painting by Madrigal, which depicts the artist and his wife. Exhibition materials at New City Studio noted that Madrigal uses painting "to convey his internal world" while "thinking and speaking through the eyes of different people."

Truth From Within (no. 2)
Constance McBride's clay sculpture is one of several recently shown in the Phoenix Art Museum exhibition of work by 2016 Contemporary Forum artist grant winners. It's currently on view in the "Frankenstein in the 21st Century" exhibit at The Gallery at Scottsdale Civic Center Library.