As the Discovery Issue, V117 features our cast of the latest and greatest ahead, as nominated by the cultural forces of now. This editorial appears in the pages of V117, our Spring Preview 2019 issue, on newsstands today!

Of Texan-born artist Rosson Crow’s upcoming foray into film, Jeremy Scott says, “If her paintings are any indication, her leap to the big screen will be a lush alternate reality fit for both Salvador Dalí and Dolly Parton.” Utopia Road, entering production next year, follows a televan-gelist sowing late-in-life doubts in the American Southwest—a plot that stems from the self-described history buff’s fascination with religion in America.

Buckhorn Curio Store, San Antonio, Texas (2017), Rosson Crow Photographed by Joshua White

“Televangelism is the most American version of religion I can think of,” says Crow. And while everyone from Jeremy Scott to Tammy Faye Baker has proven that visual excess and devoted followings often go hand-in-hand, the SVA graduate’s paintings tend to show in boutique, downtown scenes (like the one where she rest crossed paths with Scott in the mid-aughts). This fall, around the time she plans to wrap production on Utopia Road, the Los Angeles transplant will return to this scene, showcasing an all-new batch of her highly graphic gardens of earthly delights at New York’s The Hole gallery.