SANTA FE — There must be thousands of tiny, pastel-colored, overlapping butterfly stickers in Amaryllis R. Flowers’s “Wayfinder” (2025). The irregularly shaped work on paper, featured in the artist’s positively illuminating exhibition Pursuing Defeat at Hecho a Mano, also includes a maze of black and white eyeball stickers, creating snaking trails that are accented every so often with plastic googly eyes. In the corner of the scene, a bald, blue-skinned figure crouches before a black abyss, eyes and mouth agape, holding a magenta-colored fiery torch. The artwork’s extreme deckled edges suggest that this is a peek into a larger, never-ending story. Haven’t we each felt like cowering in a corner when all eyes are on us and a plague of butterflies invades our stomachs? No, just me? And yet, the figure isn’t cowering. Instead, she’s looking up at her options, wide-eyed, with that trusty torch to light her way. “Calendar” (2025) depicts two similar figures, feeling their way through a pink and purple cave, who encounter a group of floating, disembodied blue heads — ghosts, ancestors perhaps, or any otherworldly beings who seem just as surprised to see the explorers as the explorers are to see them. In “Flashlight” (2025), electric blue-purple gouache and glitter on black paper compose layers of underground tunnels in what might be a diamond mine. Nude bodies slither past heart-shaped faceted gems, while others stand en masse, wielding pole axes. A large face snarls and opens her mouth to expel flames. These three works and more showcase an artistic practice that “creates an environment of psychic revolt, allowing us to take pleasure in spaces we’ve been taught to feel ashamed,” writes Flowers, who identifies as queer and Puerto Rican-American. Amaryllis Flowers, “No Man’s Land” (2023), acrylic, blind embossment, airbrush, gouache, collage, and craft materials on archival paperThe storytelling and world-building qualities of her work benefit from the immersive nature of installation, but the selection of singular works in Pursuing Defeat serves as an enticing sampling, like pages from a feminist fairytale or screenshots of a femme fantasy video game. In her 2023 Joan Mitchell Foundation “In the Studio” interview, Flowers says that she thinks about monster mythology and autonomy as they relate to the all-too-human experience of feeling unwanted and out of place: “So for those people who struggle with feeling like they shouldn’t be here, I just want to make work that helps them feel like they want to die less, or even just the willingness to be alive more.” Flowers reveals her monstrous empathy and lust for life in her drawings through prismatic, fantastical depictions of colorful towering figures with third eyes and giant tongues; spaceships hovering above rugged terrain and rushing rivers; collections of bejeweled tools, weapons, and pointy guitars. Her generous use of iridescence in works such as “No Man’s Land” (2023) signals a resistance to one state of being and instead embodies a dynamic, shapeshifting sensual energy. Plastic letter beads, charms, identical miniature baby bottles, and fake teeth add mass appeal to “Feel Good Forgotten Map for Falling Through the Cracks” (2025). The two brown-skinned women in “ENTER GAME” (2025), surrounded by shimmery iridescent streamers, stand their ground and hold either end of an oversized furcula, poised to break the “rules” and make a wish. Amaryllis Flowers, “Calendar” (2025), gouache, airbrush, acrylic, and craft materials on archival paperAmaryllis Flowers, “Flashlight” (2025), gouache and glitter on archival paperAmaryllis Flowers, “ENTER GAME” (2025), acrylic medium, gouache, watercolor, airbrush, and craft materials on archival paperAmaryllis Flowers, “COMPASS” (2015), synthetic human hair, Jacquard loom, black threadPursuing Defeat continues at Hecho a Mano (129 West Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, New Mexico) through March 3. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.