Quantum Entanglement, POVs and Memory: Art Events Around Denver This Week, May 14-21

This week around Denver, artists are using sculpture, photography and abstract painting to explore concepts of perspective, memory and self.

Use this list to catch up on new exhibitions to attend and catch ongoing shows before they leave.

In Denver Arts News

• First Friday Vendor Registration: Vending spots have filled up for June First Friday in the Art District on Santa Fe, which is June 5. July and September registration is $50 for regular spots (assigned randomly), and $75 for corner spots. August First Friday pricing is TBA. Register on the ADSF website.
• PlatteForum Is Moving: After five years in the ArtLab in Curtis Park and a studio/gallery in RiNo, PlatteForum has announced that it will be moving into the historic Smith’s Chapel, known to many as the longtime home of Inner City Parish, in the heart of the Art District on Santa Fe. PlatteForum will move to its new program space on May 5 and its doors at 910 Galapago Street will officially open on June 5 for a First Friday Grand Opening Event.
• ReCreative Denver Seeks Artwork for RePost Event: RePost is an anonymous art sale and benefit for ReCreative Denver. Artists donate postcard-sized works of art (four by six inches) in a medium of their choice. The artworks are hung in the store’s second-floor gallery and sold the night of the event for $25 each. Proceeds from the event support the mission and operations of ReCreative, an art supplies thrift store. Donations of artwork will be accepted through May 29, and can be dropped off or mailed to ReCreative Denver, 765 Santa Fe Drive, Denver Colorado, 80206. RePost will be from 7 to 10 p.m. on June 6.
• RiNo to Hold Summer Solstice Celebration: Brilliant RiNo is a one-night immersive art party welcoming the arrival of summer in the heart of RiNo Art District, to be held from 5 to 10 p.m. on June 20 at RiNo ArtPark. Stay tuned for details.

Art Shows Opening Around Denver

Enjoy the View
Opening reception: Friday, May 15, 5 to 8 p.m.; on view through June 14
Artists on Santa Fe, 747 Santa Fe Drive
Enjoy the View is a display of Lisa Calzavara’s abstract landscape paintings, inspired by the vital life forces of nature which emerge each spring. The paintings in this series convey both the energy and calm that coexist in nature’s most extraordinary places, with views that reveal the dramatic natural features — the canyons, the gentle movement of streams, the changing contours along the shoreline, and the mesmerizing flow of waterfalls. “Through my work, I seek to evoke a range of emotions,” explains Calzavara. “The boldness of color and the extremes of shadow and illumination ignite a sense of excitement, as each scene presents a new discovery and fresh perspective. There is anticipation in witnessing how light continuously alters the environment, revealing unexpected beauty and depth. At the same time, the tranquil spaces within these natural landscapes invite a feeling of serenity, offering a peaceful retreat from the world.”

Quantum Entanglement
Opening reception: Friday, May 15, 5 to 9 p.m.; on view through June 14
931 Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
In Quantum Entanglement, fiber and mixed media artists Talia Johns and Penelope Sharp combine wire, thread, wood, stone and found elements to create sculptures that explore connection and tension, where geometric and fluid forms coexist and distinctions between authorship dissolve.

Sea Change
Opening reception: Friday, May 15, 5 to 8 p.m.; artist talk: Saturday, June 20, noon; on view through July 3
William Havu Gallery, 1040 Cherokee Street
Sea Change is Amy Metier’s eleventh solo show with William Havu Gallery, featuring new paintings on panel and works on paper. Most of these works are abstracted references to landscapes, still lives or architecture. Metier’s work is in the permanent collection of the Denver Art Museum and The Kirkland, as well as private and public collections throughout the United States and Europe.

Points of View (POV): Ideas in Conversation
Opening reception: Friday, May 15, 5 to 9 p.m.; on view through June 14
rolo gallery, 910 Santa Fe Drive
rolo gallery announces its grand opening with Points of View (POV): Ideas in Conversation, a vibrant inaugural group exhibition featuring a diverse range of contemporary artists and perspectives. The show was curated by artist and founder Kelly Austin Rolo, and featured artists include Linda Armacost, Judith Bergquist, Rita Bhasin, Rick Dallago,
Anne Emmons, Melody Epperson, Mark Friday, Steve Girard, Vonder Gray, Gigia Kolouch, Nicole Korbe, Leslie Lefferdink, Michele Messenger, Kelly Austin Rolo, and Gabrielle Shannon.

Make It Yourself, At Home
Opening reception: Friday, May 15, 6 to 8 p.m.; on view through June 12
Annex Gallery, 3575 Ringsby Court
PlatteForum Artist in Residence Drew Austin will open his show, Make Yourself, At Home at Annex Gallery. Austin, an interdisciplinary artist and curator living and working in Denver, has been working with PlatteForum’s ArtLab interns to develop the exhibit. Centering a process-based approach, the show presents a body of work as an exploration in the understanding of self, through the act of making. Inspired by overlapping worlds of interior design, queer coding, quantum physics, aging, and personal intuitive response, the physical crafting of the work takes precedence over the meaning of individual pieces.

Sacred Noticing
Opening reception: Friday, May 15, 6 to 9 p.m.; on view through June 14
SYNC Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
Sacred Noticing is a body of photography work by DCD Dixon and sculptures and paintings by J. “Popeye” Olson. Dixon’s photos are rooted not in spectacle, but in a spiritual awakening toward attention, while Olson’s sculptures and paintings are figurative in nature, with abstraction used to enhance composition and ignite imagination.

Duty of Memory
Opening: Monday, May 18; on view through May 22
First floor West Foyer of Colorado State Capitol building, 200 East Colfax Avenue
In 1945, people of the southern Netherlands Limburg region began a grave adoption program for American soldiers buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery. These Dutch families have cared for and visited every soldier’s grave for over 80 years. Duty of Memory is an exhibit of fifty posters about The Netherlands American Cemetery from WW2 and the Colorado soldiers buried there. After its stop at the Colorado State Capitol, it will tour around other locations in the state this summer.

Ongoing Art Shows Worth a Visit

Threaded Narratives: Weaving South Asian Identity in Colorado
Through May 23
Bus Stop Gallery, 4895 Broadway, Boulder
Threaded Narratives brings together artists from across Colorado whose work reflects a shared yet varied experience of identity. Through a range of practices, the exhibition highlights the presence and perspectives of South Asian artists within Colorado’s creative community.

The Cat and Dog Show
Through May 24
Core Art Space, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
In this juried exhibition of artists from the Front Range and across the country, artists celebrate cats and dogs through painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, mixed media, ceramics, fiber and sculpture.

Flight Risks: Birds In Peril
Through May 24
Edge Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Denver printmaker and animator Jessie Rodriguez will have a stop-motion film-themed art show at Edge Gallery in Lakewood. Flight Risks is a celebration of Rodriguez’s stop motion films in which she consistently places her bird characters in dangerously humorous and often depressing situations to drive plot and narrative. Her stop motion animations are created from linocut prints. Characters, background and text are made by hand by carving each piece out of linoleum, hand printing it onto paper and photographing them frame by frame.

Observer Effect
Through May 24
Edge Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
In Anthony Porcaro’s debut solo show, Observer Effect, explores the boundary between truth and artifice in photography. “The work bridges the gap between the ‘artifice’ of contemporary photography and the ‘authenticity’ of 19th-century chemical processes,” Porcaro explains. “By using the Wet Plate Collodion process to capture meticulously staged miniature sets and digital composites, I am creating what I call contradictory objects. These works present an obvious fiction, yet they are validated by the organic textures of silver deposits—the historical markers of a truthful photograph.” Porcaro is an art educator at Arvada West High School and a member at Edge Gallery.

We the People
Through May 24
The Gallery @ArtGym, 1460 Leyden Street
The journey of survival, resilience and triumph told through the eyes of immigrants from around the world comes to life through the lens of storyteller and photographer Walter Gallacher in We the People. What started as a podcast has evolved into an immersive exhibition that invites visitors to see the faces and hear the voices behind the powerful stories. The exhibition combines portraiture with audio.

The Stars Watch From Long Ago
Through May 30
Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee Street
The Stars Watch From Long Ago features work in film, collage, objects and prints by Stacey Steers, who will have an artist talk event on Wednesday, May 6. RSVP to debra@robischongallery.com by Tuesday, May 6, to attend.

Energy, Form, Flow
Through May 30
Pulse Visual Art, 3256 Walnut Street
This solo show featuring the work of Tom Ward is an ongoing exploration of how energy travels through both the natural world and human experience. Growing up in Southern California, Ward was immersed in environments defined by motion: ocean currents, shifting light, and the quiet complexity of living systems. Early fascinations with biology, from studying insects to watching fish glide through water, continue to echo through his visual language today.

Color as Light: A Restorative Experience
Through May 31
Alto Gallery, 1900 35th Street, Suite B
Color as Light explores color as light and energy through large-scale silk works from artist Christy Cattin’s Veils of Light series and introduces a guided color practice that invites visitors to engage with art through breath, intuition and visualization. Cattin is a Denver-based artist whose work explores color as energy, emotion and restoration.

Extinction Burst
Through May 31
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Featuring the work of Cody Kuehl and Zachary Reece, Extinction Burst is a unique adventure
and collaboration. Kuehl’s sought-after paintings of new western visions are a feast for the imagination, while Reece’s work is highly detailed. Reece is a pointillist, composing geometric patterns over his subject, alternating stipples and circles, then using a stylus to build the image molecularly, one circle and dot at a time.

A Room Happy
Through May 31
NKollectiv, 3485 South Broadway, Englewood
Artworks by Mary Lynn Baird and Michele Messenger mirror the delight they each find in the creative process as this exhibition puts a premium on highlighting their most smile-inducing, energetic works. Baird’s focus is printmaking, and Messenger specializes in encaustic, but they will also display the results of dabbling in one another’s medium, as well as a small gathering of papier-mâché animals to further infuse the space with happiness.

Sculpting Sound
Through June 6
Leon Gallery, 1112 East 17th Street
Sculpting Sound features multiple new sonic artworks by local visual and installation artists that will become an “orchestra” for a series of new musical commissions to be performed by the musicians in The Playground Ensemble. The artworks and composers’ scores will be on display at Leon Gallery through June 6. General admission is $20.

35th Annual Governor’s Art Show & Sale
Through June 6
Loveland Museum, 503 North Lincoln Avenue, Loveland
The Governor’s Art Show & Sale is a six-week exhibition known as one of the largest juried fine art shows featuring exclusively Colorado artists. This year’s show displays the work of 65 artists, including ten making their first appearance at the show. Artwork can be viewed in person and online throughout the exhibition. Opening night gala tickets are $100, while general admission is $7 for Loveland residents, $10 for non-residents and free for kids under 12.

Rainbow (Desperate)
Through June 7
Understudy, 890 C 14th Street
In this solo show by Kaitlyn Tucek, Tucek creates a body of work that engages ideas of impermanence, fragility, and play, reflecting her ongoing interest in temporality and how meaning shifts through lived experience. The show centers on an 18-foot inflatable rainbow, surrounded by paintings and ceramic works that extend the artist’s visual language across scale and material.

CHAC Gallery Members’ Showcase
Through June 20
CHAC Gallery, 834 Santa Fe Drive
This showcase is a multi-generational show bringing together CHAC artists ranging from emerging creatives to accomplished masters, highlighting pieces that are deeply connected to the essence of Denver. Each artist has chosen work that is the deepest expression of their voice.

Western Federation of Watercolor Societies’ 51st Annual Exhibition
Through June 27
Curtis Center for the Arts, 2349 East Orchard Road, Greenwood Village
Master watercolorists from the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies, which includes groups in several states, including Colorado, will show off their work in this exhibit.

The End Is the Beginning
Through June 28
PonPon, 2528 Walnut Street
The End is the Beginning is a photography show featuring the work of long-time Denver music photographer Michael McGrath, a long-time fixture on the Denver music scene, photographing local and national acts for a variety of outlets including the Denver Post, Audiovore, and Twist and Shout Records since the early ’90s. McGrath was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive Stage 4 cancer in January of last year and was told he had “months” to live. Since then, he has been undergoing often debilitating treatments to fight the cancer while continuing to shoot live music regularly. The End is the Beginning features recent work, much of it created since his diagnosis. It also features his early work, from 35 mm film, from the early ’90s — including Indie Rock pioneers like Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, Iggy Pop and Hole.

SABO / UNSAVORYAGENTS: The Right Kind of Rebels
Through July 1
VFW Post #1 Denver, 841 Santa Fe Drive
Art created by veterans and SABO, the artist responsible for the “KAMALAS ILLEGALS” and “MIGRANT HOOKERS $20” art placed around the Denver Capitol about a year ago will be on display in The Right Kind of Rebels at VFW Post #1. The collection on display comments on current politics, history and events that have helped shape the collective American psyche. SABO says this is his first show in the Denver area, and he’s curious to see the reception of the work. “I don’t do landscapes, and I believe that if art is not political, it’s wallpaper,” SABO says. “I hope this opportunity catches the eyes of some other galleries who are open to displaying my more edgy works.”

Beyond the Western Horizon
Through July 31
Madden Gallery at Museum of Outdoor Arts, 6331 South Fiddlers Green Circle, Greenwood Village
Celebrate the “reimagined myth, memory, and the enduring spirit of the American West” with Beyond the Western Horizon, an exhibit featuring twenty artists and over fifty artworks depicting aspects of the American West, from people and animals to landscapes, through a variety of mediums. “We’re lucky to live in a state with stunning natural resources, strong light and Western lifestyles stimulating our many talented visual artists,” MOA founder and director Cynthia Madden Leitner says.

On the Walls at CSU: Posters from the 1970s
Through August 16
CSU Libraries – Morgan Library, 1201 Center Avenue Mall, Fort Collins
Colorado State University showcases campus life, design and activism through archival posters from the ’70s at Morgan Library. The exhibition features posters, exhibition panels and publications produced at CSU in the 1970s and preserved in the University Archives.

Coming Soon

Animal Planet Kid
Saturday, May 30, 6 to 10 p.m.
2240 Curtis Street
Zaida Sever, whose Denver Art Noodle won a 2026 Best of Denver award for “Best Mix of Snakes and Art,” will do just that with Animal Planet Kid, a living show, integrating herpetological education with large-scale, experiential installation art. The show, which Sever’s snakes will attend, is a nostalgic tribute to the golden era of wildlife media and a forward-looking manifesto on exotic pet husbandry, featuring multiple terrariums transformed into museum-quality, naturalistic enclosures.

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