By design, springtime is full of a bounty of new art.

Every petal is a brushstroke on the landscape, each new bud of vegetation a fleck of bright paint on the canvas. And as spring appears across the environs of Los Angeles, it also arrives at the city’s museums in the form of novel art exhibits displaying vibrant and thought-provoking art.

Keep reading to learn more about some of the art exhibits the Daily Bruin is sure to visit among the bouquet of springtime activities across LA.

“Zheng Chongbin: Golden State” (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Through acrylic and ink, “Zheng Chongbin: Golden State” depicts California’s natural beauty.

As a presentation, “Zheng Chongbin: Golden State” is offered by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and opened March 23. The collection is the biggest showcase of Zheng’s artwork in the United States so far and the first exhibition of his pieces with colored pigments. Trained in traditional Chinese figurative painting, as well as installation and performance art, Zheng combines painting and video techniques to navigate visualizations of water, light and movement.

A piece titled “Golden State” was specifically made for the collection. Using gold and gray paper, Zheng uses sharp lines that are reminiscent of California’s fault lines from his time living in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than three decades. Zheng’s art has also been showcased at the Shanghai Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and others.

With a state as golden as California, Zheng’s art has many opportunities to shine at LACMA.

– Amy Wong

[Related: Getty Center interns share interpretations of newly exhibited medieval manuscripts]

“What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999” (Getty Center)

To see what they saw, appreciators of art should be sure to visit the Getty Center’s latest exhibit.

Showcasing more than 100 photobooks by women artists and photographers, the Getty installation of “What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843–1999” is part of an international tour of reading rooms and events that began in 2022. This pop-up-style exhibition surveys stories told by women from across the world through photographs and illustrations, including pieces such as Dorothea Lange’s “An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion” and “The Light of Asia or The Great Renunciation” by Mabel Eardley-Wilmot. The exhibition, free of admission charge, opened April 8 and will be on view until May 11.

The 10×10 Photobooks compilation and subsequent Getty exhibit is a crucial step toward female representation in a male-dominated history of anthologies. The reading room features out-of-print books and original publications rich with thematic importance. The exhibit will include a “SoCal Contemporary” section that highlights women artists from Southern California who have shared their social and political experiences through the ocular medium of photography.

“What They Saw” aims to display feminine artistry and genuine visual storytelling.

– Eleanor Meyers

“Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me” (The Broad)

This spring, The Broad will become a space shaped by Jeffrey Gibson.

Following a history-making debut as the first Indigenous artist to solely represent the U.S. at the 60th Venice Biennale – often nicknamed the art world Olympics – “Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me” will arrive at The Broad on May 10 and run until Sept. 28. This specially adapted exhibition will mark the titular Choctaw-Cherokee artist’s first solo museum exhibition in Southern California. Deriving its name from Layli Long Soldier’s poem “Ȟe Sápa,” the exhibit invites viewers to explore Gibson’s multidimensional celebration of identity, community and reverence for those who came before him.

The exhibition marks the addition of a new painting to The Broad’s collection, titled “THE RETURNED MALE STUDENT FAR TOO FREQUENTLY GOES BACK TO THE RESERVATION AND FALLS INTO THE OLD CUSTOM OF LETTING HIS HAIR GROW LONG.” Conceived with prismatic colors, shapes and typography, the piece spells out a quote from a 1902 letter that targeted Native American tradition in a call for assimilation. This act of reclamation through bright color reflects the heart of Gibson’s work. With more than 30 pieces, his exhibition encapsulates an inclusive vision rooted in survival, healing and joy.

Where history was once erased, Gibson paints it back in full technicolor.

– Jacob Tristeza

[Related: Art exhibit preview: Winter displays showcase variety of mediums, cultural tales]

“Hammer Projects: Renata Petersen” (Hammer Museum)

Renata Petersen is expanding the horizons of religion and society in her upcoming contemporary art exhibit.

Petersen’s exhibit, consisting of three glazed ceramic pieces, will be featured at the Hammer Museum from May 18 to Sept. 7. The black and white pieces contain an overload of bold headlines, religious figures and satirical art, offering a historical lens to the religious sects of Southern California. The exhibit pays homage to Giotto di Bondone’s Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, which is cloaked in religious murals.

The Guadalajara artist shows pride in her Mexican background as she incorporates subtle nods of her culture into her art. She said in an interview, “If you give something a significance, the semantics of the object changed. … We as Mexicans do that a lot, how we give an esoteric value to something that is an industrial-made product.” This idea is translated into her exhibit as she blurs the lines between pop culture and religion, creating a comical, caricatured depiction of faith. She strengthens this contemporary spin through her glazed ceramic and distinctive titles: “Horizons du fantastique,” “They’re coming to get you,” and “Raging Women.”

When faith meets humor, Petersen will make viewers question the difference between sacred and satire.

– Chirag Tailor