Life, the Universe, and Everything

"I'm always thinking in shapes and colors," says ceramicist Judith Cohn. "It's who I am; it's how I think." Cohn's Dust to Dust exhibit at Spark Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive, is a ceramic installation made up of about 300 abstract pieces layered in an archeological dig of a piece. "It's about the fleeting quality of life," she says. "I think in clay, and as I get older, I've begun thinking about life — how quickly it passes, how fleeting and how beautiful."

While Cohn translates the personal, painter Sue Simon deals with the nuts and bolts of the physical universe. The onetime scientific illustrator for Harvard and MIT seamlessly incorporates chemical structures, DNA and formulas into her abstract paintings. "It's an interesting and beautiful universe," says Simon. "I just want people to think about it a little deeper." Simon's Synthesis is showing in tandem with Dust to Dust and includes four large and eight small multi-part paintings defined by subtle color and white space. "Like nature, everything is made up of smaller parts, like atoms and molecules, with space in between," Simon notes. "It's not really solid stuff out there."

Both exhibits open today at noon and stay up through January 27; an opening reception takes place Friday, January 11, from 6 to 9 p.m. For more information, go to www.sparkgallery.com or call 720-889-2200.
Jan. 3-27, 2008