Mayor Erin Mendenhall is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 Mayor’s Artists Awards, which will be presented in conjunction with the Utah Arts Festival on Friday, June 24 at 7 p.m. at the Festival Stage at Library and Washington Square.

Jorge Rojas

Jorge Rojas is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and educator. Rojas studied Art at the University of Utah and at Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is included in multiple public collections. From 2015-2021, Rojas served as director of learning and engagement at Utah Museum of Fine Arts, where he oversaw education, community engagement, and adult programming initiatives for the Museum. Rojas’s combined practice as an artist, curator, and educator directly align with his passion for working with communities towards racial and cultural justice.

Roots Art Kollective

Roots Art Kollective (RAK) is composed of three Mexican American artists Miguel Galaz, Alan Ochoa, and Luis Novoa. RAK’s mission is to expand public art to create a vibrant environment that allows people to learn about the cultures that enrich our communities. RAK’s takes inspiration from their cultural roots as well as their diverse individual interests such as calligraphy, ancient motifs/patterns, and the natural environment. RAK believes art can redefine the cultural space we embody through the use of Nature, Patterns, and Calligraphy.

Fanny Guadalupe Blauer

Fanny Guadalupe is a Mexican immigrant and identifies herself as a storyteller. She believes that other people’s stories can help us find ourselves. Fanny’s passion is to work and advocate for acknowledgement and visibility of cultural diversity in our community. She is the current director of Artes de Mexico en Utah, an organization dedicated to the foundation of a sense of belonging through the creation of art and the appreciation of the Mexican identity, historical connections, and living traditions. Fanny is a co-founder and leader for the Diversity and Inclusion team at the Natural History Museum of Utah and has acted as a community liaison and cultural interpreter for several museums in Utah.

Breaking Barriers

Breaking Barriers: A Cultural Accessibility Project is a partnership between Art Access and the Utah Division of Arts & Museums to provide disability accessibility training and mentorship to our state’s cultural institutions. This free training is for staff of arts, museums, and community organizations to enhance their knowledge on subjects such as: disability definitions and models, intersectionality and microaggressions, making appropriate accommodations, and much more. Participants develop accessibility plans that address immediate as well as short and long term deficiencies in their organizations to become more accessible to the disability community. Since its inception the program has trained 58 organizations and over 200 individuals.

Sandy Brunvand

Sandy Brunvand is Associate Professor Emerita in Art Teaching at the University of Utah. Brunvand is the recipient of the College of Fine Arts Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching, 2017 and The Utah Art Education Association’s Utah Higher Education Art Educator of the Year, 2017. Her career as an art educator has included 13 years of K-12 teaching in public schools. In 2014 Brunvand was named one of Utah’s 15 most influential artists by Artists of Utah – 15BYTES. She is a co-founder of Saltgrass Printmakers, and has exhibited her work internationally. Most recently, Brunvand is creating a new artistic animal advocacy entity that is still in its early stages, PaperInkPaws.