Gallery Shows

For over 16 years, MICA's gallery has featured work from local icons, national talent, and emerging Utah voices. Our curation is guided by a commitment to strengthening cross-cultural dialogue. Our gallery is a platform for artists who engage with community and justice through their work, and who speak from communities who have been historically underrepresented and marginalized in the art world. MICA remains one of the few arts spaces located on the west side showcasing these important creative voices, and many successful local artists had their first show with us. Originally located at the Mestizo Coffee House, the MICA gallery is now operating out of Sugar Space Arts Warehouse.

See below for samples from past gallery shows, and visit our calendar for upcoming shows and events.

Abstracción Geométrica: Paintings by Juan Gasca

September, 2019

Abstracción Geométrica featured the work of Salt Lake City-based painter Juan Pablo Gasca. In these works, Gasca utilizes carefully-placed geometric shapes over canvas to create beautiful and dynamic compositions. Influenced by the great masters of geometric and abstract art, such as Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso, or Manuel Felguérez, Gasca’s paintings cleverly combine light, color, and space and create a very personal and unique style. Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, Juan started drawing at an early age and, for the most part, is a self-taught artist. In 2013, he started experimenting with different mediums and techniques and discovered that geometry and abstraction were the styles he was looking for to express himself. Juan began investigating the work of the American Abstract Expressionists of the 1940’s and 50’s and the Mexican Geometrism movement of the 1970’s. “The way these artists used space, color, light and design to give their paintings that expressiveness and life, sparked my inspiration and creativity to start creating my own geometric compositions.”

Progress and Development: Exploring Gentrification with Nathaniel Praska

July, 2017

With this gallery show, Progress and Development, artist Nathaniel Praska engaged with issues of gentrification and how it threatens the economically vulnerable, thereby upsetting the cultural richness of a community, neighborhood, or city.

Nathaniel Praska started painting at the age of three with his grandmother who taught painting at the local community college. First working en plein air, Nathaniel has participated in many juried shows across the country with his landscape work. In 2012, he received a grant from the Calligram Foundation which allowed him a great deal of time to work and study. During this time, he he took a large step away from conventional representational painting and into iconographical depictions of familiar things: an excavator, dentures, the polaroid of a nude woman. His paintings are objects within objects, represented in spare lines and grooves of thik paint, in a monochromatic palette with textures that absorb, rather than reflect light. Nathaniel lives and works in Portland.

I AM I: Interrogating Gender and Mormonism

May, 2017

I am I, a group show consisting of female artists with Mormon ties, posed the question, "How is your female gender identity defined?" Using the self portrait to facilitate participation in this conversation, I Am I provided a range of perceptions that are widely relatable beyond the constraints of the participants.

The show was curated by Jessica Rae Ecker, and artists featured in the show included:

Carly Ostler
Jessica Rae Ecker
Amber Wright
Amy Nicole Perterson
Meagan Porter
Rachel Cardenas Stallings

I Honor You: Commemorating the AIM

April, 2017

With the show I Honor You, photographer Denae Shanidiin commemorated the history of the American Indian Movement and "the living and breathing that are still fighting our 500+ year battles."

Denae Shanidiin, Diné and Korean artist, is born to the Diné (Navajo) Nation. She is Honágháahnii, One-Walks-Around Clan, born to the Korean race on her father’s side. Kinłichíi’nii, the Red House People, is her maternal grandfather’s clan and the Bilagáana, White People, is her paternal grandfather’s Clan.

Shanidiin’s work responds to her own identity as an Indigenous woman and artist. Her photography work reveals her Diné ancestry through intimate family portraits in urban settings and on her homeland. Shanidiin’s various projects reveal the importance of Indigenous spirituality and sovereignty. Her work brings awareness to many contemporary First Nation issues including missing and murdered Indigenous People.

Hands Up Don't Shoot: A Group Exhibition

February, 2017

Hands Up, Don’t Shoot, was a multi-artist exhibition that dealt with themes of police brutality and violence against underrepresented groups. This show included works by:

Alexis Rausch
Andrew Fillmore
Brinley Froelich
Denae Shanidiin
Ella Mendoza
Sarah May

Through the pieces presented, the artists aimed to create awareness, promote discussion, and inspire solutions to the deeply rooted systematic racism that is so pervasive in this country.

Rainbow Variance: Paintings from Andrew Alba

September 2016

Rainbow Variance, featuring paintings from Andrew Alba, focused on the intersections between race and ethnic identity in the Latinx community. His work explored the stories of white, afro-Latinx, brown, bi-racial, queer and undocumented people.

Artist Andrew Alba was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah and has pursued painting and drawing from an early age. His pieces incorporate abstraction and neo-expressionism, while working outside the predominant art world. Recent travel through Mexico and up to Alaska exposed Alba to plein air painting, which he has incorporated into his artistic style.

Header image from the exhibition Abstracción Geométrica by artist Juan Gasca