At one time, accessing works of art in Las Vegas meant visiting galleries or a private collection, perhaps traveling to a city with renowned art museums. Usually, those trips would mean visitors would observe the artwork while it was hanging on the wall or sitting in a sculpture garden.

The new exhibition in the East Gallery of UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is vastly different from nearly every other art exhibit you’ve seen.

There’s no fitting women like Erica Vital-Lazare into a box. To her College of Southern Nevada students, she’s a professor of creative writing. To the literary scene, she’s an inspiring force, moving from one blooming project to the next, like the busy and exceptionally brilliant bee that she is.

A few months ago, when it seemed like we were about to finally turn a corner on the whole COVID-19 thing, Clark County put out a public call for art reflecting on the pandemic experience. The resulting show, Emotional Weather at Winchester-Dondero Cultural Center Art Gallery, digs into the cross-current of emotions we’ve all felt: fear, frustration, boredom, isolation and, yes, hope. These feelings are expressed through a kaleidoscope of media, including paint, ceramics, charcoal, ink, collage, colored pencil and embroidery.

Alisha Kerlin is a shining star in the Las Vegas art scene. As the executive director of UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, she leads one of Nevada’s most important arts organizations. And yet, her success in showing others’ art has mostly kept her too busy to make her own.

How Nevada’s two university art museums survived the pandemic

Last spring, Wendy Kveck taught an art class at UNLV called Finding America in Las Vegas. “I considered how the landscape and cultures of Southern Nevada have influenced artists’ work over the decades,” she wrote in a blog post for Nevada Humanities.

Krystal Ramirez is one of Las Vegas’ more audacious visual talents