Art Attack: Portraits of Cuban Youth, Floating Flowers, Architectural Photos and More

First Friday has passed, but March continues to bring photographic silhouettes of teen immigrants, portraits of young Cubans finding their way through cultural tribulations, beautiful blue cyanotypes, architectural abstracts, floating bouquets bleeding with color, and a whole lot more.

What do you fancy? Here’s a broad selection of exhibitions worth seeing:
Month of Photography, March 9-12

This year’s fast and furious Month of Photography biennial continues to fill every weekend in March with new shows. We’ve narrowed down Westword’s top picks of must-see shows, and the MoP’s full calendar is the most complete list of exhibitions, talks, workshops and other events. Somewhere in between those two poles, the exhibitions listed below merit special mention.

Belonging and Coexistence – Photography and Community opened in February at the University of Denver’s Davis Gallery in the Shwayder Building, 2121 East Asbury Avenue, but animal photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur will give an artist talk at 6 p.m. March 9 at Sturm Hall, 2020-2040 South Race Street. Besides McArthur, who documents the relationship between humans and the animal world, the gallery includes socially engaged photography projects by seven DU alums. The show ends March 24.
Photographer Dona Laurita has long used the silhouette as a storytelling device for her ongoing Silhouette Project, a series of blacked-out portraits of people whose humanity emerges in other ways — through their poses and written entries. The Silhouette Project: Newcomers, a show with a focus on local high-school-aged immigrants, runs through April 2 at Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street in Lakewood, with a reception scheduled for March 11. Several events scheduled throughout the run, bringing an underrepresented community out of the shadows, include an artist talk on March 12 from 2 to 4 p.m.; a Newcomer Share Event from 2 to 4 p.m. March 19 ; live music on March 25, 2 to 4 p.m.; and a closing party April 1, 2 to 6 p.m.

Some Assembly Required, an exhibition that’s all about medium and process — alternative, modern, historic, staged scenes and video — opens March 9 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Red Rocks Community College, 13300 West Sixth Avenue, Lakewood, and runs through March 30. Curated by Tiana Graves, the show focuses on how contemporary photographers are using both analog and digital mediums in the 21st century.
The late Dan Asher, a social anthropologist who picked up a camera to shoot imagery in faraway places, left behind a whole series of iceberg photos taken at the South Pole. They take on a whole new meaning now, as rising temperatures and ocean waters are changing the frigid landscape. See them at Mr. Pool, 2347 South Street in Boulder, from March 10 through April 15.

The late Longmont photographer Tony Umile passed in 2022, leaving three decades' worth of documentations of his travels far and wide, using experimental techniques. Captured Images opens with a March 10 reception from 6 to 9 p.m. and runs through April 9 at Firehouse Art Center, 667 4th Avenue, Longmont.
Guest artists Leah Diament, Lizeth Guadalupe, Christine Nguyen and Christopher R. Perez, as well as DAVA teen artists, explored the process of using sunlight and chemicals to produce blue-hued cyanotypes or photograms — images of objects placed on photo-sensitive paper — for Blue Wonder, a gorgeous exhibition that opens March 10 with a reception from 4 to 7 p.m. and runs through April 28.

Todd Edward Herman, who happens to be the founder of Boulder’s East Window Gallery, offers family images randomly juxtaposed with visuals borrowed from AI databases for Sanctuary, based on his forthcoming photo book of the same name. It opens at the Armory, 2565 Curtis Street, beginning Saturday, March 11, with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m.; see the collection through April 6.
Spectra Art Space shares work by an all-local group of photographers for another show exposing the current interest in mixing alternative, throwback and digital processes for Snapped, which opens Sunday, March 11 with a reception from 6 to 10 p.m. and runs through April 2. RSVP for the opening at Eventbrite; base admission is free, but donations of $15 or $20 include extra party perks.
Gabriel Sanchez, They Devoured Everything
David B. Smith Gallery, 1543 A Wazee Street
Friday, March 10, through April 8
Opening reception: Friday, March 10, 6 to 8 p.m.
Get your booty over to David B. Smith to see Gabriel Sanchez’s frank portraits of young Cubans living in turbulent political, cultural and personal times. Sanchez, an American-born Cuban, looks in on their lives with positivity, hoping to inspire compassion and better understanding in people viewing the show while allowing his subjects safety and freedom to be who they are.
Architecture of Form IV
Core Art Space, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, March 10, through March 26
Opening Reception, Friday, March 10, 5 to 10 p.m.
The nineteen artists of this year’s Architecture of Form exhibition, now back for its fourth iteration, share an affinity for modernist principles in art, which they apply in a myriad of ways, through painting, sculpture, neon, clay and jewelry, to name a few directions. The work is excellent across the board, and worth a visit to Core Art Space.
Christine Buchsbaum and Justin Wood
Tricia Vitrano, The Next Right Thing
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, March 10, through March 26
Opening Reception, Friday, March 10, 6 to 9:30 p.m.
Pirate members Christine Buchsbaum and Justin Wood take over the main gallery, while associate member Tricia Vitrano brings order to chaotic modern life with her installation, The Next Right Thing.
Enchanted: Photographs by Barbara Gal
Around the World in 100 Days: Photography from around the globe
Flight, in the Next Members Gallery
Next Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, March 10, through March 26
Opening Reception, Friday, March 10, 5 to 10 p.m.
Next Gallery gets caught up in the Month of Photography craze with two photo shows — Enchanted, a solo by member Barbara Gal, who employed her artist’s eye to document a trip to New Mexico, and Around the World in 100 Days, a show comprised of work by an international group of photographers who found one another over the internet. The third exhibition is a group member show on the theme of Flight, with a multitude of interpretations on a subject that forever captivates the human race.
Field of View: Photographic Expressions
Edge Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, March 10, through March 26
Opening Reception, Friday, March 10, 6 to 9 p.m.
Edge Gallery also tunes into photographic imagery with Field of View: Photographic Expressions, a non-juried open community show that promises to be all over the place, with work from hobbyists to professionals and everything in between. The great thing about seeing shows at the 40 West Art Hub is that you can hit several galleries on your list in one visit, and there are others within walking distance in the neighborhood.

LEAF2023, Sync: Work by Signal Culture Artists-in-Residence
The Collective Community Arts Center, 201 North Public Road, Lafayette
Friday, March 10, through April 30
Opening Reception: Friday, March 10, 6 to 8 p.m.
Curator Talk by Debora Bernagozzi: Saturday, April 1, noon
Performance by Phillip David Stearns: Saturday, April 22, 4 p.m.
The electronic and new media Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival (LEAF) has four events falling between March 10 and April 30 in 2023, beginning with the visual element of an art exhibition, Sync, curated by Debora Bernagozzi of Signal Culture. Four international artists —Yvonne Buchanan, the team of Monica Duncan and Senem Pirler, LoVid and Phillip David Stearns — will share video art, prints and textile pieces, and Stearns will give a performance using his high-resolution analog audio-video synthesizer in the space on April 22.
Mark Gualtieri and Matt O’Neill, I is an other
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
Through April 9
Closing Reception: Friday, April 7, 8 p.m.-late
I is an other opened on First Friday, but the exhibition of work by Mark Gualtieri and Matt O’Neill is on view through April 9, with a closing reception on April 7. The title, a quote from poet Arthur Rimbaud, references the artists’ differences: Pittsburgh-based painter Gualtieri looks for the unexpected in abstracted landscapes and portraiture, while O’Neill, a longtime Denver fixture known, among other things, for his imaginative ballpoint-pen drawings, paints architectural abstracts in complex lines and shapes.
Kevin Sloan, Fervent Emblems
Kuzana Ogg, Persuasion
K Contemporary, 1412 Wazee Street
Saturday, March 11, through April 15
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 11, 3 to 6 p.m.
In the main gallery, K Contemporary showcases surrealist Kevin Sloan in Fervent Emblems, a collection of new work drenched in brightly colored floral bouquets — some potted, some displayed in dishes and others in frames — all set against lush landscapes. In contrast, Kuzana Ogg’s breezy, bleeding wash paintings float through the project space like a foggy morning, acting as welcoming portals.
Hugo D. Villa, Pleasure Surfaces
Ryan Joseph Gallery, 2647 West 38th Avenue
Saturday, March 11, through April 12
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 11, 5 to 11 p.m.
Ryan Joseph Gallery hosts Mexican artist Hugo D. Villa for a month-long show, Pleasure Surfaces, that the artist says represents the multiple sensory blends of synesthesia. “Listen to the color,” Villa invites, offering brilliantly hued shapes, animal faces, human body parts and tendrils as the bait.

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