Far North & Outer Space. Far North & Outer Space, now at Goodwin Fine Art, features new work by Beau Carey and Lanny DeVuono, both of whom create contemporary paintings based obliquely on views of the landscape. Many of the Careys are snow scenes and were inspired by a National Park Service artist-residency he did in a cabin at the base of Denali in Alaska. Carey is interested in mashing up styles, and his paintings are typically hybrids of landscapes and color-field abstractions. To say that the DeVuono paintings provide the perfect complement to the Careys would be an understatement, as she, too, blends straight representation with color-field abstraction. DeVuono's views are hypothetical scenes of Mars, and she notes their similarity to the views of the Southwest. Most have two elements — a very complex gray-tone detail of the Martian landscape and a dreamy color field meant to convey the planet's atmosphere. Through November 1 at Goodwin Fine Art, 1255 Delaware Street, 303-573-1255, goodwinfineart.com. Reviewed September 18.
Homare Ikedaand Nancy Lovendahl.The context of current abstraction provides the backdrop for two interconnected solos at the William Havu Gallery which, taken together, make up one of the great presentations on view in town right now. Homare Ikeda: Revisitfeatures a tremendous selection of the artist's idiosyncratic abstract paintings, which cover the walls on the first floor; interspersed throughout the same space is an array of the compelling nature-based abstract sculptures that make up the second show, Nancy Lovendahl: Intercessions. Ikeda's abstract paintings bear a relationship, particularly in their lava-like surfaces, to neo-expressionism, but his work is abstract and not based on recognizable imagery, as was the signature of that style. Though Lovendahl is doing something entirely different from Ikeda, the two shows work very well together. Long enamored of natural materials, here Lovendahl undermines the essential characteristics of the stone she uses through the insertion of color in the form of toned-up epoxy resins and through pairing rough-cut shards with highly polished elements. Through October 18 at William Havu Gallery, 1040 Cherokee Street, 303-893-2360, williamhavugallery.com. Reviewed October 9.
Lisa Kowalski: Black and White. An extremely elegant, sparely installed painting show,Lisa Kowalski: Black and Whiteis made up of pieces that, as the title suggests, are predominantly black and white, but there are a lot of different grays employed, too. Facing viewers as they enter is a stunning triptych, "Untitled #148-14," which, at fifteen feet across, functions as a mural. Fluid black lines are arranged in rough horizontals and verticals, some of which are fairly thick. It's really an eye-dazzler, despite the stripped-down simplicity of the palette and the formal elements — or rather because
of those features. Everything in this show has been done to a high standard. Looking at these works, you couldn't be blamed for thinking that they are the product of freely applied automatic gestures, but they are actually based on preparatory collages. Kowalski tears pictures out of magazines and then arranges them, adding passages of paint to create the overall composition that she then carries out in oil on panels. Interestingly, these collages include representational images — but Kowalski turns them into purely non-objective shapes. Through October 18 at Ironton Studios and Gallery, 3636 Chestnut Place, irontonstudios.com. Reviewed October 9.Unbound: Sculpture in the Field. Since the Arvada Center sits on a very large site, exhibitions manager Collin Parson and assistant curator Kristen Bueb decided recently to use a small part of it – a seventeen-acre field just to the south of the complex – as a xeric sculpture garden. Parson and Bueb invited Cynthia Madden Leitner of the Museum of Outdoor Arts in Englewood to partner with the center in the effort. MOA has made a specialty of placing large pieces of sculpture in various spots around metro Denver, and that technical expertise was very desirable. The group put together a list of sculptors they wanted to include, and the final roster of fifteen artists was established, with most being represented by two pieces. The participating artists, all of whom live in Colorado and work in abstraction or conceptual abstraction, are Vanessa Clarke, Emmett Culligan, John Ferguson, Erick Johnson, Andy Libertone, Nancy Lovendahl, Robert Mangold, Patrick Marold, David Mazza, Andy Miller, Charles Parson, Carl Reed, Joe Riché, Kevin Robb and Bill Vielehr. Through September 30, 2015, at the Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Boulevard, 720-898-7200, arvadacenter.org. Reviewed July 10.
