When Meow Wolf Grapevine opens this summer, visitors will have a chance to experience the work of Forth Worth artist Mariell Guzman and how her cultural heritage inspires her multidisciplinary art.
“Growing up in Mexico and growing up in a very colorful, vibrant culture really inspired me and influenced the way I want to see the world no matter where I travel,” she said. “I love the fact that in Mexican culture overall, everybody’s very passionate about everything. And I think color really brings out that passion.”
Meow Wolf is known for its quirky, otherworldly rethinking of art and art spaces with locations in Santa Fe, Denver and Las Vegas. Guzman has created a room for the Grapevine installation that she describes as an accumulation of “abstract, surreal worlds” in which she hopes people can feel at home.
“What I want for people whenever they experience it, is to just let their imaginations run wild with it and find a way that they can also feel at home there and that they can belong,” she said.
“Especially being an immigrant, you kind of lose a sense of home and, like, where you feel like you can be your most authentic self because you kind of are dealing with being in two different cultures,” she said. “And I think art for me was, like, where I could create my own world and, like, it could be exactly what I want to be and nobody was like, ‘Oh, it’s not enough of this or this.’”
