Alison Mutha Magazine Article [work] May 2026

Alison Mutha’s memoir, “The Third Setting,” is available for preorder now. Her show “A Kindness of Crows” runs Nov. 15–Jan. 10 at Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

Her next project? A graphic novel with no words, set entirely in a single elevator. A fragrance line based on the smell of a library after a rainstorm. And, improbably, a documentary about competitive whistling. alison mutha magazine article

She bought a crumbling Airstream, drove it to the Mojave Desert, and did something radical: nothing. For six months, she watched shadows move across the sand. She learned to whittle. She wrote letters to her dead grandmother by candlelight. And when she finally picked up a brush again, the work was different. Darker. Slower. More honest. 10 at Regen Projects, Los Angeles

For the last decade, Mutha has been the best-kept secret of the Los Angeles underground—a polymath who refuses to be polymathic. “The moment you call yourself a multi-hyphenate,” she says, sipping cold brew from a ceramic mug that looks like it was thrown by a potter who was very angry at the universe, “you stop being an artist and start being a brand. I’d rather just be late to my own dinner party.” A fragrance line based on the smell of

And in an age of AI-generated scripts, ghostwritten op-eds, and algorithmic anxiety, maybe that is the most radical act left.

Why you haven’t heard her name yet—and why you won’t forget it now.