Art Attack: New Art Shows Channel Spring This Week in Denver
Follow this path and you might just step into a whole new light:
Jennifer Hohlfelder: People and Places
Museum of Boulder, 2205 Broadway, Boulder
Through June 16
Jennifer Hohlfelder grew up in an artistic family, but didn’t begin to explore her own inner creative eye until well into adulthood. Subsequent painting classes and personal drive led her to take a leap. People and Places, opening today at the Museum of Boulder, reveals a style that revels in simplicity, with color-blocked compositions and landscapes providing the background for figures caught in everyday moments and pleasurable recreation.
Art of Banksy
Denver Sports Castle, 1000 Broadway
Thursday, April 14, through June 12
Admission: $40 to $70, by reservation
Banksy is here, keeping company with his pals Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo and their current Denver attractions, but using a different approach: Instead of giant, immersive walk-through spectacle, this is an actual exhibition of works by the elusive street artist. Tickets starting at $40 might seem pricey, but judge for yourself — it’s quite a collection.
See this wall sculpture by Jay Phillips at Micheal Warren Contemporary.
Courtesy of Michael Warren Contemporary
Andrew Roberts-Gray, Aquarian
Jay Phillips
Michael Warren Contemporary, 760 Santa Fe Drive
Through May 21
Opening Reception: Friday, April 15, 5 to 8 p.m.
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 16, 10:30 a.m. to noon
Michael Warren Contemporary unveils new work by a couple of artists based in the Colorado high country: Carbondale’s Andrew Roberts-Gray and Jay Phillips, who lives and works in Glenwood Springs, but also makes the rounds in Aspen and Carbondale. Both create process-heavy works on surfaces combining the traditional and the unique, with futuristic themes.
Chapter
The Language of Trees
BRDG Project, 1553 Platte Street
Friday, April 15, through April 28
Soft Reception: Friday, April 15, 6 to 10 p.m.
Earth Day Opening Reception: Friday, April 22, 6 to 10 p.m.
Guest Environmental Speaker on Trees: Saturday, April 23, 4 to 5 p.m.
Colorado Environmental Film Festival Tree Documentaries: Saturday, April 23, 6 to 8 p.m.
Closing Reception: Thursday, April 28, 6 to 9 p.m.
The BRDG Project celebrates Earth Day and new directions with two new exhibitions, The Language of Trees, which includes a long weekend of special Earth Day events, and Chapter, a salute to a variety of artists who’ve shown work during the gallery’s first year. That anniversary also marks BRDG Project’s transition into the nonprofit sector while showing prudence about its temporary space in the Zang Building, which will be undergoing renovations when these shows end. Co-founders Brett Matarazzo and Michael Dowling conceived the space as a gallery “bridging artist, gallery, youth and underserved communities together in an accessible and engaging space for contemporary expression and learning,” and its future might include new digs, preferably in the same area. To that end, a crowdfunding platform will be starting soon. Visit the website for more information.
Vicki Christensen, “Question,” mixed media on canvas.
Courtesy of Bitfactory
Workshop Exhibition
Bitfactory, 851 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, April 15, through May 7
Opening Reception: Friday, April 15, 6 to 9 p.m.
Tokyo-born octogenarian and Bitfactory studio artist Tadashi Hayakawa’s transcendent abstract-expressionist style could have had roots in the freestyle practice of Japanese brush calligraphy. It’s that free, and at the same time, exact. Artists headed in the same direction found inspiration from Hayakawa during a recent painting workshop that he led; the results are now part of the exhibition Workshop, curated by Bitfactory owner Bill Thomason.
Helene Strebel and Jim Olson, new works
Sync Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, April 14, through May 15
Opening Reception: Friday, April 15, 6 to 9 p.m.
Sync artists Jim Olson and Helen Strebel take command of the space for a month with a variety of abstracted, figurative stoneware sculptures, oil paintings and drawings, and flowing acrylic abstracts with textural ornamentations.
In Bloom Meet the Artists Night
Access Gallery, 909 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, April 15, 6 to 8 p.m.
Access Gallery’s young artists with disabilities recently celebrated the arrival of spring flowers with help from the Denver Botanic Gardens, resulting in a pile of lovely flora-inspired artworks in various mediums. On Meet the Artists Night, visitors will be able to do just that, with an extra perk: A whole new group of ceramic works created with the Boulder Pottery Lab and continuing on the same theme have been added to the show. RSVP here.
Cone Zone Steamroller Printing
Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, 1600 Pierce Street, Lakewood
Saturday, April 16, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Cone Zone Printmaking Exhibit: Friday, April 22, through May 27, Rotunda Gallery, RMCAD
The Cone Zone typically signals the end of Mo’Print for another year, but it’s a really big climax. Participating artists will prepare humongous wood or fiberboard blocks that are placed on the pavement and pressed down by a two-ton steamroller. Prints will then be peeled off the block to be hung for a show in RMCAD’s Rotunda Gallery. We call that a fitting spectacle for Mo’Print’s last hurrah. Registration for printmakers has ended, but spectators are welcome.
Printmaking as Generative Sculpture
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
Saturday, April 16, 3 to 6 p.m.
Pirate is stepping up its programming to bring people into the space beyond opening receptions, including performance nights and this free print workshop with Kate Laster (@howlingmoondog), who creates risographs out of paper cuts of epigrams and quotes. Here she surpasses that practice by going monumental.
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