Here’s where to get a great feel for art in Denver in 2022:
Casa Bonita Art Show Call for Entries
Submissions accepted online through Monday, January 31
This might be the call for entries that defines 2022, dear artists, in light of the fact that Casa Bonita will rise again in an elevated form that includes food that tastes good. How will that change the experience? Will Casa Bonita’s two-bit Meow Wolf ambience survive what looks like gentrification? Will it be the same with clean bathrooms? These are all issues an artist might want to attack in a 2022-era piece defining the pipe dream that Casa Bonita has become in local lore. It’s all up to you — nostalgic period piece or Casa Bonita of the future? Make up your mind now: Entries are due by Monday, January 31.
Honoring Stevon Lucero
Community Room 1, Northglenn Arts, One East Memorial Parkway, Northglenn
Through Wednesday, March 30
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 6:30 to 9 p.m.
The Chicano Humanities and Arts Council pays proper tribute to CHAC co-founder, mentor and beloved artist Stevon Lucero with a legacy exhibition hosted by Northglenn Arts, beginning on First Friday. Lucero, who passed away in November at the age of 72, will be honored in a show that includes his most evocative paintings, which mainly fall into the categories of meta-realism and neo-pre-Columbian imagery, both styles of his own invention and the products of vivid dreams and historical and metaphysical studies. If you’re looking for the true definition of Lucero’s work, this is a not-to-miss show.
Taylor Balkissoon, Stop the World and Let Me Off
Dateline Gallery, 3004 Larimer Street
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 6 to 11 p.m.
CU Denver BFA graduate Taylor Balkissoon spent some time in Denver exhibiting in and curating local shows before moving to New Orleans. But Balkissoon is back, at least for a short time, at Dateline Gallery, a regular hangout for the artist a few years ago. Stop the World and Let Me Off includes video works, collages and risographs with highly politicized themes around the need to respect and raise up artists instead of capitalist office towers. Balkissoon is also raising funds for Sol Tribe and the NOLA collective Uptown Laundry. And keep up with the artist during a weeklong takeover of Dateline’s Instagram.
Camron Eidsness, “Perennials These Days #2,” 2021, acrylic and gesso on canvas.
Camron Eidsness
Bell Projects, 2822 East 17th Avenue
Through Sunday, January 23
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 6 to 10 p.m.
There’s more gallery news tucked into the latest show at Bell Projects: Fragmentary Elation, by Camron Eidsness, will be the first exhibition at the space’s new location on 17th Avenue, which replaces ARTAOS Gallery (which has reopened in Sacramento). Eidsness’s busy, layered gesso and acrylic bas-relief canvases made up of clustered organic shapes take cues from nature — plant life, clouds, rocks and rivers — as well as more obtuse subjects.
Ramón Bonilla, Fiat Lux
Alto Gallery, RiNo ArtPark, 1900 35th Street, Suite B
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 6 to 10 p.m.
Ramón Bonilla’s muralistic, architectural line drawings cross conforming boundaries to create new dimensions appearing in various forms — for instance, drawn with markers at RTD’s Market Station and with black tape on the exterior of Alto Gallery. Now he’s extending the concept by filling Alto’s interior space with a wraparound mural composed of black tape, vinyl and reclaimed materials, and embellished with multimedia light and sound elements. See the results at the First Friday reception.
The Road Less Traveled: Personal Journeys in Contemporary Art
Edge Gallery, Art Hub, 6851 West Colfax, Lakewood
Through Sunday, January 23
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 6 to 9 p.m.
Edge greets 2022 with a huge, full-gallery juried show adjudicated by Denver artist André Lippard. For the Road Less Traveled, entrants were asked to create work they’d consider a breakthrough or personal best. Some took it literally, musing on personal directions, while others honed their practices with well-defined techniques and an expression of ease while working with new materials. That adds up to a show of distinct diversity that reaches for the clouds.
Core Members Show
Core New Art Space, Art Hub, 6851 West Colfax, Lakewood
Through Sunday, January 23
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 5 to 10 p.m.
Core goes traditional with a 2022 member show kicking off a year of solo member shows. What you see now is a predictive sign of what you’ll get as the new year progresses.
Matthew Lay, St. John’s Cathedral, oil on canvas.
Matthew Lay
Matthew Lay, Remnants and Retrospective
ArtSource Colorado, Art as Instrument
Next Gallery, Art Hub, 6851 West Colfax, Lakewood
Through Sunday, January 23
Opening Night: Friday, January 7, 6 to 10 p.m.
Next Gallery takes advantage of its entire display space to throw a members' show focusing on landscapes, along with two member solos: Matthew Lay’s Remnants and Retrospective, a selection of paintings depicting Denver-area churches and other iconic buildings; and from the members of Artsource, a professional development organization for art teachers that holds a member spot at the gallery, a show juried by painter/printmaker Tony Ortega.
I, Woman: A Woman-Led Collaborative Art Show
Rise Westwood Gallery, 3738 Morrison Road
Through Sunday, January 30
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 5 p.m.
Spokeswoman Kodi Delaney of the women-led Sunrose Art Collective says that I, Woman, a show co-sponsored by D3Arts and the Empress, shows a punk attitude toward the art world’s glass ceiling. The exhibition is designed to amplify the artistic voices of women from the most challenged groups — women of color and members of the LGBTQ community — in an inclusive environment.
Kyle Banister, “Justice.”
Kyle Banister
RPO Framing & Gallery, 1588 South Pearl Street
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 5 to 9:30 p.m.
Kyle Banister, whose specialties include chalk art (he’s one of those artists who chalk the sidewalk in front of Coors Field on opening day), lettering and sign painting, listened to the adults when he was young and they told him that art wasn’t a legitimate career choice. Over the years, he’s learned otherwise — hence the title California Dreamin' I Wish I'd Known Then What I Know Now. This is Banister’s experiential redo.
J. Bruce Wilcox
Awake Denver, 2240 Clay Street, Unit 100
Through Monday, January 31
Opening: Friday, January 7
Art-quilt master J. Bruce Wilcox helps doll up the alcohol-free LoHi bar Awake Denver for First Friday with a small selection of his colorful, patterned quilted wall hangings to brighten the new mocktail saloon’s late-afternoon LGBTQ Happy Hour. Whether you favor a stiff cortado or a gentle “New Fashioned,” Awake is the best place in town to view art without getting drunk.
Mia Bergeron, Luminalia
Gallery 1261, 1261 Delaware Street, Suite 1
Through Friday, February 4
The Golden Triangle palace for fine representational art, Gallery 1261, kicks off 2022 with the bright light of hope in the form of painter Mia Bergeron’s Luminalia, an artful exploration into the nature of a burning flame in the darkness. Her settings for candlelight will surprise and delight.
Deep Space
Foolproof Contemporary Art, 3240 Larimer Street
Through Monday, January 31
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 6 to 9 p.m.
Foolproof gallery director Laura Phelps Rogers will join Jennifer Hope, Sahand Tabatabai, Marc and Gillie, Tobias Flores and Louis Recchia in the group show Deep Space, an exhibition that’s all about art conceptualizing the mysteries of space, deep space and quantum theory.
An unititled work by Greg Dzurita.
Greg Dzurita
931 Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
Through Sunday, February 6
Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 5 to 9 p.m.
Greg Dzurita borrows his aesthetic from mid-century art and architecture, manipulating elegant abstract forms into rectangles that are compositionally pleasing as a group — or just one at a time.
Annual Spark Members' Show: Part One
Spark Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Through Sunday, January 30
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 8, noon to 5 p.m.
Last Look: Sunday, January 30, 1 to 4 p.m.
Denver’s oldest artist co-op, Spark Gallery, opens the year with the first installment of a two-part member show, a wide-ranging exhibition by sixteen mature, name-brand local artists. The other half debuts in February.
Charles Parson, Multimedia One-Person Exhibition
Curtis Center for the Arts, 2349 East Orchard Road, Greenwood Village
Saturday, January 8, through Saturday, February 26
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 8, 6 to 8 p.m.
The Curtis Center fetes inimitable Colorado sculptor Charles Parson this winter with a hybrid show that includes large-scale sculptures outdoors. Inside the gallery are his smaller sculptures, dimensional geometrics layered between glass panes, site-specific drawings and the written narratives Parson used to create a book, which will also be on display. It’s a must-see for viewers interested in understanding the natural inspirations behind Parson’s complete oeuvre.
Guided Tour of Lumonics
Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery, 800 East 73rd Avenue, #11
Sunday, January 9, 1 to 2:30 p.m.
The light sculptures called Lumonics were created beginning in the ’60s by hip Miami art couple Mel and Dorothy Tanner, who later began experimenting with multimedia shows incorporating the sculptures. After Mel Tanner died, Dorothy eventually found her way to Denver, re-creating a studio, gallery and event space where she could continue the legacy of Lumonics. Now she's gone, too, but Lumonics lives on in tribute to its creators. The space began offering guided tours over the summer, and because of the positive response, the tours, which cover an extensive gallery of Lumonics sculptures and end with a mini-light and sound show, now run on the second Sunday of every month. Reserve your free tour and learn more online.
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