But the biggest opening this weekend is the sixth annual Casa Bonita Art Show, returning in triumph as the wacky pink eatertainment palace prepares to reopen in May. The show is already exceeding expectations, with more than seventy artists on board.
Dive right in, and explore all the art-related happenings around Denver this weekend:
Seth Mayer, “Multiverse,” 2021, archival pigment print.
Courtesy of Seth Mayer
Deanna Raso and Pam Neyman, Architect Tonics: The Nature of Architecture and the Architecture of Nature
D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, February 16, through March 12
Opening Reception: Friday, February 17, 6 to 9 p.m.
D’art Gallery gets a head start on Month of Photography programming April with two shows that pair works by a photographer and a fine artist. In the Main Gallery, member Seth Mayer, a highly imaginative and well-decorated photographer living in Colorado Springs, shares space with fellow member Jutta Golas, a ceramic artist. Mayer’s images are made using out-of-the-box techniques to surprise the eye with floating figures, in-your-face animal portraits and de-focused action shots. Meanwhile, Golas borrows shapes and textures from nature, which she gussies up with glazes upon glazes, airbrushed metallic lustre and repeated firing techniques.
In the East Gallery, photographer Deanna Raso and painter Pamela Neyman compare and contrast images of urban architecture with the geological architecture of the landscape.
A linocut by Jini Kim Veenker at Modis in the City.
Courtesy of Jini Kim Veenker
Modis in the City, 1553 Platte Street
Thursday, February 16, through April 23
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
A new BRDG Project quarterly show opens at Modis in the City, showcasing Brett Fox’s photography altered with mixed media, Joey Kerlin’s collage work and Jini Kim Veenker’s black-and-white linocuts. The loose theme between them is storytelling through imagery. In other words, every picture tells a story.
Art + Science artist talk with Monica Aiello, Tyler Aiello and Katie Caron
Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, 6901 Wadsworth Boulevard, Arvada
Thursday, February 16, 6 p.m.
Free with RSVP
Get insights into the science behind artworks by Monica Aiello, Tyler Aiello and Katie Caron at an artist talk with the trio at the Arvada Center. The Aiellos, an artist couple, have compatible but very different styles: Monica, a painter, is known for her large, detailed landscapes of terrestrial bodies other than Earth, while Tyler, a sculptor, renders the microscopic world in airy sculptures pieced together with metal and wood, as if created with a more sophisticated, hand-cut erector set. Caron also blows up imagery in 3-D — in this case, branching physical structures of the human body or ocean detritus.
A mural by LA-based artist Kenny Scharf.
Thomas Mitchell
Leon Gallery, 1112 East 17th Avenue
Thursday, February 16, 6 p.m.
Free, no reservation necessary
Leon movie nights are back, on no particular schedule, but the first date this year is a screening of When Worlds Collide, a documentary about the life and milieu of artist Kenny Scharf, the pop-art graffitist and contemporary of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Scharf, the only one of the three who is still alive, painted an outside window mural in 2017 at Denver’s International Church of Cannabis, which you can check out before or after the show. Follow Leon’s Instagram for future screenings.
Syncopation: A Contributing Artists Exhibition
Sync Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, February 16, through March 12
Opening Reception: Friday, February 17, 6 to 9 p.m.
Sync Gallery gives up space to members of its 2023 contributing artists program this month, so expect to see work in a large variety of mediums that you might not have viewed before in this space. The show is one of the perks for participating artists, who get limited services for an annual fee. For artists interested in applying for the 2024 group, applications are available now on the website and are due by October 21, 2023.
LeAnn Fenton, "Sopapillas."
Courtesy of LeAnn Fenton
Next Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, February 17, through March 5
Opening Reception: Friday, February 17, 5 to 10 p.m.
One of the biggest, most high-profile annual gallery shows in the Denver area is not what you’d expect —but now history is on its side. Every year, Next Gallery celebrates Casa Bonita, the beloved pink place that towers over the 40 West Arts District; it's slated to reopen in May with better food and a blinding bubblegum paint job. The kitschy indoor circus known for its sopapillas, cliff divers, puppet shows, grimy grottos and other tawdry entertainments closed in 2020 and was eventually bought by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Can you imagine the frenzy? Show juror and Casa Bonita aficionado Andrew Novick says that this is the largest-ever Casa Bonita exhibition, with more than seventy works by local and national artists. Awards will be announced at the reception, including some offering cold, hard cash.
Heart and Soul / Live Art Demonstration
Access Gallery, 909 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, February 17, 6 to 8 p.m.
A remarkable and invaluable tool that helps artists with limited or no use of their hands guide their visual instincts, the Artistic Realization Technologies program has finally made it to Denver — specifically, to Access Gallery, thanks to funding via Arts in Society. Access is hosting a demonstration for the Art District on Santa Fe’s Third Friday collectors art walk, with Access artist Stevie and “tracker” Corrina Espinosa, who lets him guide the paintbrush through a variety of cues. Also on view is work from the ever-popular AJ Kiel, whose maze-like compositions utilize urban imagery.
What Remains
Anderson Academic Commons Dean's Suite Gallery, Upper Level, University of Denver, 2150 East Evans Avenue
Friday, February 17, through May 14
Opening Reception: February 17, 5 to 8 p.m. in the Loft, Anderson Academic Commons 340
Artist, historian, DJ and founder/editor of the arts journal Daria Magazine Genevieve Waller along with transmedia and performance artist Mary Grace Bernard are co-jurors of the Month of Photography exhibition What Remains, opening at the Anderson Academic Commons Dean's Suite Gallery at the University of Denver. Together, they have chosen work by eight artists exploring decay and its debris through photography, with an emphasis on history and the push-pull of the natural and manmade worlds.
John Davenport, Vine of Death
Mad Tatters, Conjuring of Liminal Lovers
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, February 17, through March 5
Opening reception Friday, February 17, 6 to 10 p.m.
Photographer John Davenport and associates Brandan Styles and Ellie Rusinova, aka Mad Tatters, are taking over the Pirate gallery with major installations both powerful and whimsical, with a side of creepy. Davenport’s central Month of Photography offering, Vine of Death, is inspired by his father’s years as a chemical weapons worker at Rocky Flats, and he’ll also have a series of smaller installations on gun violence, mass shootings and racism. Mad Tatters, on the other hand, celebrate the love they have for each other, offering a peek into their shared world of sideshow-infused installations sprinkled with metaphysics.
Steve Morrell, "Skater Girl."
Courtesy of Steve Morrell
Core Art Space, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, February 17, through March 5
Opening reception Friday, February 17, 5 to 10 p.m.
Everything’s coming up roses at Core Art Space, where the juried show Rose Colored Glasses colors the gallery’s mood with optimism. Or maybe not. Either way, you’ll see plenty of red and pink hues in this show, but it might be prudent to read between the lines.
Diego Florez-Arroyo Artist Talk
Alto Gallery, RiNo ArtPark, 1900 35th Street
Saturday, February 18, noon to 2 p.m.
Diego Florez-Arroyo’s show Mensajes Mestizos at Alto Gallery is about a lot of things: his self-identity, his culture, his people and the ongoing pull of history, the land and the stories they propel. It’s a beautiful gift to everyone who sees it, like a personal mural of his life. The artist will explain its deeper insights at an artist talk this Saturday that's a good chance to see the show: It ends February 25.
Bob Luna Memorial Art Show
CHAC Gallery, 1560 Teller Street, Lakewood
Saturday, February 18, 1 to 4 p.m.
Bob Luna passed away in 2021, leaving a hole in the Chicano mural and arts community. The members of CHAC haven’t forgotten Luna, though, and put together a small show in remembrance of one of their own. Whether you knew him or not, drop by and enjoy his folksy artworks.
Speaking with Light: Contemporary Indigenous Photography
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Sunday, February 19, through May 21
Much has been made of white artists who photographed Indigenous people, but what about the Indigenous photographers who’ve captured their own culture in a more truthful way, one that has nothing to do with the glorified historical images of Edward S. Curtis? Speaking With Light, curated by John Rohrbach, senior curator of photographs at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and Navajo/Diné artist and curator Will Wilson, will modernize your perspective with imagery shot by more than thirty Indigenous artists over the last thirty years. The show, located in the Hamilton Building, is included in the DAM gate admission.
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