Looking for a spiritual awakening this spring? Arts editor Natalie Hegert traces a visionary and esoteric throughline among thirty-seven of this season’s top exhibitions.
Spring is a time of reawakening, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that this season’s exhibitions across the Southwest feature a strong spiritual and visionary slant. A feast for the third eye (as well as your others), these shows bind the heavenly with the earthly. At Southwest Contemporary we’re feeling primed for the supernatural following our brush with the collective consciousness performed by AI actors—but we’re looking for something deeper.
With the world so broken and descending into an era of brutal destruction, art offers healing, a way to rise from the ashes and remake the world. Artists—especially artist-visionaries like Leonard Knight who single-handedly and -mindedly built Salvation Mountain in the California desert—have known this forever. So this is your sign to cast a spell, draw a tarot card, and connect with a higher consciousness.
Hilma’s Ghost: Light as Resistance
MOCA Tucson
March 6–September 27, 2026
The feminist artist collective Hilma’s Ghost, co-founded by artists and educators Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray, draws upon the legacy of Swedish artist and mystic Hilma af Klint (1862-1944). The collective resurrects the cosmic geometries of the abstractionist in symmetrical compositions across new paintings and video. They position the recent rehabilitation of af Klint’s image as more than just aesthetic or conceptual inspiration, but a potent “feminist act against the darkness of contemporary life.”
A Queer Arcana: Art, Magic, and Spirit
Palm Springs Art Museum
March 28–October 16, 2026
Aligning queerness with the search for hidden knowledge—arcana—curator David Evans Frantz draws together over a century of art and ephemera tracing the link between queer culture and occult practices. Works range from contemporary paintings and video works, to original illustrations by occult artists and books of witchcraft. Part of the museum’s Q+ Art initiative that focuses on LGBTQ+ artists and histories, A Queer Arcana pays homage to the ways that esoterica, ritual, and alternative spiritual practices have provided points of connection and identity in queer communities.
Francisco Moreno: Historia Sintética
Dallas Contemporary
April 17–October 11, 2026
In Dallas-based Mexican American artist Francisco Moreno’s paintings, art histories and cultural iconographies collide. A Renaissance angel might reside next to a figure from a Mesoamerican codex; a mythical creature overlaps a Posada-like skeleton. His first museum solo exhibition unites several bodies of work, from history paintings and mural-scale works, to The Chapel (2016-18), “an immersive painted work inspired by a Spanish Byzantine chapel,” from the Dallas Museum of Art’s collection.
Arizona Art Exhibitions
- Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) /Phoenix Art Museum/ February 28–June 28, 2026.
- Tender Alchemy: Beth Ames Swartz and Julianne Swartz / Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art /March 21–August 23, 2026.
- EVER PRESENT: Guillermo Galindo & José Luis Sotero/ Coconino Center for the Arts, Flagstaff / April 18–June 6, 2026
- Artist Hopid Unveiled / Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff / May 16, 2026–April 30, 2027.
- AZ Biennial / Tucson Museum of Art / May 22–September 27, 2026.
California Art Exhibitions
- Follow the Yellow Brick Road: The Life & Legacy of Leonard Knight /Imperial Valley Desert Museum, Ocotillo / February 6–June 3, 2026.
- Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966 to 2026 / The Cheech/ February 7–September 6, 2026 / Riverside Art Museum / February 7–July 5, 2026.
Colorado Art Exhibitions
- Ana María Hernando: Cantando Bajito (Singing Softly) / Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center / February 6–July 3, 2026.
- Ana María Hernando: Seguir Cantando (Keep Singing) / MCA Denver / March 5–July 5, 2026.
- (UN)SEEN / Redline Contemporary Art Center, Denver / March 13–May 17, 2026.
- Marcos Acosta: Fragile Thought / K Contemporary, Denver / March 14–April 25, 2026.
- Jaume Plensa: A New Humanism / Denver Botanic Gardens / April 18–September 7, 2026.
- The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art / Denver Art Museum / April 19–July 26, 2026
New Mexico Art Exhibitions
- Ash Eliza Williams: Bitter Lake / Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell / March 6–April 19, 2026.
- Roadside Attractions / New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe / March 7–October 4, 2026
- Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery / Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, Albuquerque / March 20, 2026–February 21, 2027.
- Sam Scott: Ascending Zones / Pie Projects, Santa Fe / March 21–April 25, 2026.
- Haley Greenfeather English: A Heavy Birden / Hecho a Mano, Santa Fe / April 3–26, 2026.
- Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 / SITE Santa Fe / June 5–September 7, 2026.
- Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros / Harwood Museum, Taos / June 27, 2026–February 28, 2027.
Nevada Art Exhibitions
- Actions for the Earth: Art, Care, and Ecology / Marjorie Barrick, Las Vegas / February 20–June 13, 2026.
- Whip Craft: Illegal Art in Downtown Reno / The Holland Project, Reno / March 13–April 18, 2026.
- Serva Pool Flux / The Holland Project, Reno / May 23–September 27, 2026.
Texas Art Exhibitions
- Frida: The Making of an Icon / MFAH, Houston / January 19–May 17, 2026
- Angelica Raquel: Mystic Threads / The McNay, San Antonio / January 29–July 5, 2026.
- Kelly Tapia-Chuning: Speaking Ancestors / [Re]Awakening Spirit / Liliana Bloch Gallery, Dallas / February 21–April 11, 2026.
- Ecstatic / Mass Gallery, Austin / February 28–April 4, 2026.
- Sable Elyse Smith: Clockwork / The Contemporary Austin / March 6–August 2,2026.
- Run the Code: Data-Driven Art Decoded by Thoma Foundation X Blanton Museum of Art / Blanton Museum of Art, Austin / March 8–August 2, 2026.
Utah Art Exhibitions
- Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt / UMFA, Salt Lake City / February 21–June 21, 2026.
- Sky Hopinka: Lore / UMOCA, Salt Lake City / February 27–June 6, 2026.
- Grief Work / Material, Salt Lake City / March 6–April 10, 2026.
- Olafur Eliasson: A symphony of disappearing sounds for the Great Salt Lake / Wake the Great Salt Lake, Salt Lake City / March 26–April 4, 2026.
- Unbound: Art of the West / St. George Museum of Art / March 28–May 30, 2026.
Devan Shimoyama, Le Monde, 2024, oil, colored pencil, glitter, Flashe, collage, sequins, and Swarovski crystals on canvas stretched over panel, 84 × 68 in. Courtesy the artist and De Buck Gallery, New York.
