Hannah McBeth

Tales about the founding of the artist collective Meow Wolf—now a growing interactive entertainment-arts company—are as legendary as the company’s mind-bending art installations. Meow Wolf’s name came out of a hat, and some of the artist collective’s initial investment came from fantasy writer George R. R. Martin (of Game of Thrones fame). Meow Wolf’s newest art experience is a 52,000-square-foot, otherworldly shopping excursion called Omega Mart, located in Las Vegas’ AREA15.

The sister fields of archaeology and paleontology share the near-impossible aim of putting eons of earth’s time into human perspective. The movement and scale of time are notoriously difficult for people to understand, but facing the physical remnants of plants, animals, and early humans brings millions of years into a more relatable focus. Laura Hope Mason’s mixed-media paintings in her solo show Extinct respond to forms and textures in fossils, stone, and artifacts found at the Natural History Museum of Utah.

Getting in the right mood to talk about Mirmsy’s (aka Miriam Barse) art involves borrowing a line from the cartoon cult classic Adventure Time: “C’mon, grab your friends!” Let’s frolic in the upbeat pastels and pop-culture puns that make up the loveable and unique artistry of Mirmsy. Web and graphic designer, jewelry and upcycled clothing maker, and overall jack-of-all-trades, Mirmsy’s wares are the stuff of Instagram impulse buys and unstoppable late-night giggling.

Utah is home to an art scene that stretches across the state, with subversive art pockets in unlikely places, but sometimes, Salt Lake City’s presence eclipses work and communities in smaller towns. Just outside of Moab is one such unassuming town, sandwiched between the prismatic Book Cliffs and the dusty railroad tracks—Green River. With a population of just under 1,000, Green River hosts the arts organization Epicenter, whose founders worked in Green River as AmeriCorps volunteers.

The untitled photographs in Willy Littig’s exhibit Vecinos wander across the walls of Mestizo Gallery like humble pilgrims. Dressed in understated, neat frames, they appear unburdened by worldly pretensions, as if they are on their way to ascetic enlightenment. Littig captured these images on his recent walking pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, or St. James’ Way, which stretches approximately 500 miles from the border of France and Spain to the Atlantic coast at Cape Finisterre.

Like colorful ensos or organic ouroboros unfurling around black centers, David Rios Ferreira’s collages are circular and dynamic forms, what he calls “imagined gateways, objects through which we may connect with those we cannot reach on this plane.” Accompanied by writing, photographs, and video by Denae Shanidiin, a Diné and Korean artist, the exhibition is the pair’s collaboration inspired by missing and murdered Indigenous people.

Colorful Venezuelan beet salad, Iraqi beef kebabs and rare, vegan-option mole verde: These are just a few of Spice Kitchen Incubator’s mouth-watering, unique recipes from around the world. Tasting these hard-to-find dishes at Spice Kitchen supports immigrant and refugee chefs getting their restaurant or catering businesses started. With a thorough training program, Spice Kitchen Incubator provides its participants with a roster of business and kitchen skills.

“To be an artist, you have to work like a madman,” says Galina Perova, her voice tinged with an intensity that also radiates from her award-winning oil paintings, found in state government buildings, the homes of politicians and entrepreneurs, and the University of Utah Medical School. Perova paints in an unusually wide range of genres and with impressive technical skill—a testament to the unrelenting work ethic she’s cultivated since she was a child in the Soviet Union.