Artist says murals 'speak for the people'

Doing art for public projects is a great honor, says Galina Perova, a Russian-born artist, who now lives and works in Salt Lake City.

Although her art has traveled and been exhibited internationally, she is also proud of works that have been designed to stay in one place, murals incorporated into building designs that let the public come to them. One of these projects is a "History of Health Sciences in Utah" mural that now graces the Spencer F. and Cleone P. Eccles Health Science Education Building at the University of Utah.

Another is her recent mural project that will be installed in the new 5th District Courthouse in St. George.

"To have such exposure, to be included in such an important institution like a courthouse — that's a big honor," Perova says.

But it is also a big responsibility. In painting public works, you are speaking for the people, she says, "and what you have to say for them is very important."

Perova's latest murals trace the history of the St. George area from the beginning. There are two themes, she says, the importance of nature, and the history of human interaction.

She starts with early native people, represented by petroglyphs and other remnants of early culture. She traces the arrival of the first Europeans, with the Spanish fathers of the Escalante-Dominguez Expedition.

Then, "with the pioneers, came a new culture, a new religion, a new kind of civilization. This gave rise to factories and mills. But any society must have law and order, so there is the first courthouse, the first sheriff," she says.

She depicts George A. Smith who gave his name to the city. She ends with a modern family of tourists. "That's kind of like a circle of life — from the covered wagon to the RV. People have been coming here all these years for many reasons."

This human history plays out against a backdrop of nature. "There's a lot of beauty in the flora and fauna and in the cliffs and mountains."

The mountains are her "leitmotif" for the whole mural, she says, the recurring image that unites the whole.

That's one of the challenges art on such a grand scale, she says. Paintings that are spread over a three-story area must exist individually, but also must work together. "A mural is not simply a big painting. It represents symbiosis between architecture and painting."