Month of Photography: Fabrications: Immersive Photographic Installations by Melanie Walker
Art Gallery at Red Rocks Community College, 13300 West Sixth Avenue, Lakewood
Through March 26
Closing Reception and Artist Talk: Wednesday, March 26, 4 to 6 p.m. (talk at 5 p.m.)
Melanie Walker, whose photo-based work follows visually creative and alternative pathways, found inspiration from a young age at the side of her photographer father, Todd Walker. The elder Walker excelled both in the advertising world and in the fine art world, with the latter driven by a history of experimentation spanning the photographic canon from 19th century to modern digital techniques, as well as an interest in handmade artist books. His influence as a mentor, paired with a differently abled way of seeing due to congenital blindness in her left eye, laid the basis for both Melanie Walker’s life-long dedication as an educator and her own superb body of work. Over the years, she has studied and used alternative processes such as working with mixed media, puppets and large-scale photographic installations often involving delicate, diaphanous cloth banners, suspended discs of cloud imagery or hanging forests of printed tree trunks. Walker’s show, Fabrications, is on view now at the Red Rocks Community College gallery for Month of Photography 2025. It offers various examples of her work and visual world. Wander through at the closing reception, where Walker will discuss her techniques.
Chuck Forsman, Gray Areas
Karen Kitchel, Palindrome
Zoey Frank, Yard
Gary Emrich, Reconciliation, in the Viewing Room
Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee Street
February 6 through March 29
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 6, 6 to 8 p.m.
Robischon Gallery brings a quartet of fresh new exhibitions inspired by the environment to the space this week. First up is a set of landscapes that only Chuck Forsman could have painted: wide-screen views marked by visual depth, winding roads, shapely curves, natural textures and intense cloudscapes. Karen Kitchel’s Palindrome goes the other way, peering underfoot into diptychs of tangled grasses and seasonal ground detritus, while Zoey Frank shows backyard views chopped up on multiple adjacent panels that visualize the passage of changing lighting. Finally, in a nod to Month of Photography 2025, the gallery shows Gary Emrich’s amorphous archival digital inkjet prints blending commercial views of natural settings.
BRAVA! An Homage to Women in the Visual Arts
Canyon Gallery, Boulder Public Library, 1001 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder
February 6 through March 30
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 6, 5 to 6:30 p.m.
Eleven Colorado women artists honor their personal historical and contemporary female influences for BRAVA! An Homage to Women in the Visual Arts, a new show at the Boulder Public Library’s Canyon Gallery. Some of the seminal artists celebrated include Yayoi Kusama, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Swoon, Li Yin, Judy Chicago, Sally Mann and Judy Chicago.
Into the Skin: Transnavigation Closing Party
Union Hall Gallery, The Coloradan, 1750 Wewatta Street, Suite 144
Thursday, February 6, 6 to 8 p.m. (performances at 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.)
Free, RSVP at Eventbrite
As Union Hall’s Rough Gems show Into the Skin: Transnavigation, which connects the dots between transgender jewelry makers and their practices, comes to a close, drop in for a closing party with presentations by trans drag performers Salineconjure666, Amayas and Geo Conjure. The event is free, but door donations are appreciated.
Westwood Paletero Stories
Re:Vision, 3738 Morrison Road
Friday, February 7, 6 to 8 p.m.
History Colorado Center, 1200 Broadway
February 11 through February 28, daily in the lobby
The Westwood community along Morrison Road comes together in a big way for Westwood Paletero Stories, part of a folkloric project led by artist Juls Mendoza, Westwood-based artists and the History Colorado Center, among others. Created in honor of the paleteros — favorite neighborhood micro-business-owners, most of them immigrants, in Westwood and other Hispanic areas — who push ice-pop carts through the streets, Westwood Paletero Stories comprises seven paletero carts painted by outstanding Latinx and BIPOC Denver artists. Primed by paletero oral histories, the completed carts (or carritos) will be on display on the street around the Re:Vision gallery, where the artists — Danielle Seewalker, Emanuel Martinez, Detour, Anthony Garcia Sr., Jolt, Aalycia Rodriguez and Mendoza — will also appear in a panel discussion during the evening. Afterward, the carts will move on to the History Colorado Center on February 11, where they will be on display in the lobby through the end of the month.
Erika Osborne: The Love Language of Fire
Daphne Sweet: She Rides the Sky
Angelica Raquel: ¡Ánimo! Remember You’re Magic!
Visions West Contemporary, 2605 Walnut Street
February 7 through March 14
Opening Reception: Friday, February 7, 6 to 8 p.m.
Visions West presents a trio of new shows on First Friday, including paintings by Erica Osborne, who explores the restorative nature of rebirth in woods lost to wildfire destruction; Daphne Sweet’s symbolic paintings tying mythical feminine power to the Western landscape; and from Angelica Raquel, storytelling works tied to the folklore and folk art of the Texas borderlands.Estilo — A Celebration of Artistic Style and Talent
Alto Gallery, 1900 35th Street, Suite B
February 7 through March 1
Opening Reception: Friday, February 7, 6 to 10 p.m
Alto gives it up to independent curator Lorenzo Talcott, who gathered together works by a large group of muralists, graffiti writers, urban artists, sculptors and fine artists for an exhibition of works based on the concept of street style, with an eye into the coolest of the cool. Talcott brings on the heavies for a who’s-who-sized show blending graphic visuals, humor, characters, design, technique, folklore and lifestyle.
Snakes Alive! Tenth Annual Chinese New Year Invitational
Chinese New Year Retrospective, 2015-2024
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
February 6 through March 2
First Friday: Friday, February 7, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 8, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Valkarie artists and friends all chipped in for the gallery’s tenth annual Chinese New Year Invitational, which this year salutes the Year of the Snake in dozens of ways. Playing catch-up? In the South Gallery, Valkarie brings back reruns from Lunar New Years past, where one can pick up personal favorites from the rest of the Chinese zodiac.
Winter Salon
Space Gallery, 400 Santa Fe Drive
February 7 through March 1
Opening Reception: Friday, February 7, 6 to 8 p.m.
Space Gallery hosts a gallery stable free-for-all, with works by more than 25 notable Space-represented artists, that continues through the end of February.
Raymond Gabriel, “Gilded Dreams of Sunset Eves,” oil and collage on canvas.
Raymond Gabriel
Downtown Aurora Visual Arts (DAVA), 1405 Florence Street, Aurora
Through February 24
Reception: Friday, February 7, 4 to 9 p.m.
Downtown Aurora Visual Arts tries something different this time with Breaking Boundaries, a show curated by Alyssa Williams, an MSU Denver graduate and co-curator of the 965 Project Gallery at the Center for Visual Art, who has selected works by both educators and students to cast a light on art-school partnerships and how they inspire the next generation of artists.
A video performance still by Kenzie Sitterud for Happy Sad at the Firehouse Art Center.
Kenzie Sitterud
Firehouse Art Center, 667 Fourth Avenue, Longmont
February 7 through March 9
Opening Reception: Friday, February 7, 6 to 9 p.m.
Artist Kenzie Sitterud, who served as artist-in-residence in the South Gallery at the Firehouse Art Center in Longmont from last November through January, is ready to unveil their culminating exhibition, Happy Sad, in the Main Gallery. It’s a lovely mixed bag of projects, including an experimental kinetic installation, a series of video performances, concrete balloon sculptures and some hard-edge abstract paintings. That covers a lot of ground, but Sitterud’s main focus was to deal with privilege and the nation’s current political challenges by cheering up with acts of absurdity. Expect to see a Happy Face or two.
Michael Gadlin, Among The Debris, I Find Myself
Frisian Motors Auto Gallery, 3440 Walnut Street
February 7 through February 28
Opening Reception: Friday, February 7, 5 to 9 p.m.
Painter Michael Gadlin looks back on his art career in Among The Debris, I Find Myself, an exhibition of new work in an unusual gallery space: Frisian Motors Auto Gallery, a used-car-lot in a warehouse, which for Gadlin harks back to a time when his father collected scrap metal and tires in the industrial neighborhood that eventually became RiNo. And the work fits Gadlin’s memories on raw, unstretched canvases of junkyard imagery. Join Gadlin in the garage for art, a DJ and food truck fare at the opening.
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