Artbeat

Brief sketches of what's happening in the Denver art scene.

A A A Comments By Michael Paglia Thursday, Feb 22 2001

The Colorado Photographic Arts Center (1513 Boulder St., 303-455-8999) is featuring the recent work of Karen Kirkpatrick, Michael Butts and Glenn Cuerden, last year's recipients of CPAC awards. Part of the prize for that honor was this exhibit, which has been rather bluntly titled Members Awards 2000.

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The show begins with a group of small photos by Kirkpatrick, from her "Transition Series," in which enigmatic vertical images depict scenes in a Victorian graveyard. Talk about being blunt -- in one of the photos there's an old woman. Get it? More subtle, but also dealing with death, are the photos from the "Introspection Series" hanging around the corner. In these, another old lady takes center stage, sometimes seeming to be an apparition.

A group of large horizontal photos by Butts that depict masked children covers the south wall. The photos were created with a homemade horizontal enlarger that the artist built with money provided by a CPAC grant. In each of the photos Butts has used multiple pinhole negatives, repeating the same figure, or figures, in each. The children, ostensibly celebrating, have serious, if not frightened, expressions on their partly hidden faces.

Finally, back in the lower part of the gallery, are digital giclee prints by Glenn Cuerden that show architectural interiors. All of these untitled prints are from the "Passageways" series (one of which is seen above). In these computer-generated prints, Cuerden is especially interested in the play of light and shadows seen in the unfolding spatial progressions that are invariably his topic.

The handsome exhibit showing off the disparate talents of the three CPAC award winners remains open until March 3.