Arts & Entertainment

Ten Views

William Havu Gallery

By Michael Paglia 

Even if you didn't get a chance to visit the mountains this summer, the area's galleries and art centers provided plenty of closer-to-home opportunities to take in our world-famous scenery as interpreted by artists. There was Colorado & the West, at David Cook Fine Art; Masterpieces of Colorado Landscape, at Foothills Art Center; and the enormous Landscapes of Colorado, jointly presented by the Center for Visual Art and Robischon Gallery. Add to that list the impressive but crowded Ten Views, at the William Havu Gallery (1040 Cherokee Street, 303-893-2360), which closes in a few days.

It wouldn't be wrong to call Ten Views an extension and rejoinder to Landscapes of Colorado, because that's exactly what gallery owner William Havu had in mind. In fact, Ten Views actually features three artists from Landscapes: Tracy Felix; his wife, Sushe; and Joellyn Duesberry. Considering the roster at the gallery's stable, Havu could have brought in the work of Jeremy Hillhouse and Rick Dula, who were also in Landscapes of Colorado, but he inexplicably left them out.

Stylistically, Ten Views covers a wide territory, from lighthearted, cartoon-like abstractions by the Felixes to somber, Old Master-style pieces by Jeff Aeling. Though the tried-and-true approach to landscape imagery is to capture the broad sweep of a scenic view, a few artists take close-ups instead, such as Greg Navratil's work depicting grass covered with fallen aspen leaves and Jean Gumpper's renditions of twigs, as seen in "Counterpoint" (pictured), a reductive woodcut on paper.

Gumpper's work is displayed on the mezzanine, separated from the rest of the show, which is installed on the main floor. Also on the mezzanine is a small solo, New Works by Ron Trujillo, featuring elements of still-life compositions combined with those of pattern painting. Trujillo organizes his panels into a series of vertical bars, which are then filled in with renderings of flowers, all carried out in bright, bold colors.

Ten Views (as well as an eleventh view, in the form of the Trujillo show) is set to close on September 8.