Art Events Around Denver This Week

Use this list to catch up with Denver arts news, plan opening receptions to attend and catch other interesting local art exhibitions before they close.

In Denver Arts News

• PlatteForum Names New Executive Director: Denver youth arts and artist residency program PlatteForum has named Melissa Monforti as its executive director. She takes over from interim executive director Kendall Kultgen, who will continue with the organization as operations director. ““Melissa’s appointment comes at an exciting time for the organization, and her skillset, passion, and experience as a leader, fundraiser, and empathetic human are going to be a huge benefit to the organization,” says board chair Andi Savage.
• Eight Creatives Selected for FLORA Residency: A new residency at a RiNo luxury apartment complex made waves when it announced at the end of last year that residents would get the chance to live in the apartment’s penthouses. Earlier this week, eight creatives were announced as residents, including music group The Mañanas, chef Dave Wang, and visual artists Melón, Rahmi, Geovanni Barrios, Maki Teshima, Krista Villatoro and Johnny Draco. They were chosen from a pool of more than 130 applicants and will do events throughout the year to connect with the community.
• Dairy Arts Center Announces 2027 Open Call for Art: Dairy Arts Center is currently accepting proposals from artists, curators, and collectives nationwide for exhibition opportunities in its 2027 visual arts season. The call welcomes submissions across all visual arts mediums and encourages ambitious, conceptually driven projects that foster dialogue and community engagement. The deadline to apply is April 30.

Art Shows Opening This Week

The Fragmented House
Opening reception: Friday, March 27, 5 to 8 p.m.; artist discussion: Saturday, March 28, 10:30 a.m. to noon; on display through April 25
Michael Warren Contemporary, 760 Santa Fe Drive
The Fragmented House features the work of Dorian Agüero, expanding on Abraham Lincoln’s warning that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” but moves beyond political rhetoric toward psychosocial collapse. “The exhibition establishes a visceral parallel with The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka,” according to a release.

One Small Instrument
Opening reception: Saturday, March 28, 3 to 6 p.m.; on display through April 26
Friend of a Friend, 3575 Chestnut Place, 3575 Chestnut Place, Suite 112
One Small Instrument features Tania Colette B. of Seattle, Cidney Owen of Milwaukee, and Denver artists Camille Garcia, Paloma Jimenez, Lucas T. McMahon, Cornelia Peterson, Markus Puskar and Walter Ware. The collection of work meditates “on the tools we use
and the acts or labor they might help perform. More than purely functional, these objects require actions that range from aspirational to the spiritual, where the human body and psyche must become the medium, or instrument through which energy is passed.”

Ongoing Art Shows Worth a Visit

Claiming the Crown
Through March 28
Pulse Visual Art, 3256 Walnut Street
In this solo exhibition featuring the works of local Jamaican artist, SA Bennett, art reaches for inspiration in the evolution of African heritage across different times and cultures. Inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s use of the three-tiered crown, which represents the denial of the humanhood of black people — and of society taking gifted people for granted — the exhibition reminds viewers to claim their crowns.

Soft Decline: Home After the Battle Lost
Through March 28
Squirm Gallery, 3553 Brighton Boulevard
Soft Decline is a group show cataloguing each artist’s sensory adaptations to living through times of turmoil. Including art of various mediums, the show “implores us to reflect on the ways in which we consider viable notions like uncertainty, depravity, or yearning.” Squirm Gallery’s regular hours are from 3 to 7 p.m on Saturdays. Viewing appointments are available upon request by emailing squirmgallery@gmail.com.

exPRESSion
Through March 29
NKollectiv, 3485 South Broadway, Englewood
NKollectiv joins Month of Printmaking with exPRESSion, a dynamic juried exhibition dedicated to the art and craft of printmaking in all its forms. “During the last Month of Printmaking event two years ago, we were in our small space in the Art District on Santa Fe and had work by only a few guest artists on display,” explains gallerist Nicole Korbe. “Now, in our large Englewood location, we are excited to have the opportunity to celebrate with a much larger exhibition of Colorado printmakers.” There will also be free, drop-in demonstrations of the different printmaking processes, taking place on Saturdays throughout the exhibition.

Josh Davy and Christy Lynne Seving: Somewhere In Time
Through April 5
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Somewhere In Time, featuring the work of Josh Davy and Christy Lynne Seving, explores the traces humans leave that outlast them. “We imagine ourselves to be central to the systems we build, apart from nature rather than a part of the world around us. Building becomes a way of negotiating our impermanence, leaving marks that reach beyond a single lifetime. Our structures outlast us, monuments that decay into traces of a very brief existence, suspended somewhere in time,” reads a statement for the show.

What We Tend
Through April 5
D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
What We Tend is a two-person exhibition featuring the work of Melody Epperson and Tricia Soderberg as they explored new studio practices in which they “tended” their inner artist, leaning into abstraction and intuition while maintaining their nature-inspired subject matter.

Domestic Bliss
Through April 7
Center for Colorado Women’s History, 1310 Bannock Street
Domestic Bliss features the work of Colorado textile artist Bethany Economos. It’s a mixed media exhibition of 2- and 3-D pieces that center around poetry excerpts embroidered onto vintage linens, using found objects such as upcycled fabric, vintage books and more. The exhibition “elevates traditional ‘women’s work’ while confronting the enduring struggle for gender equality,” according to the museum. Domestic Bliss is included with general museum admission.

Month of Printmaking Exhibition Featuring Print Educators of Colorado and Sue Oehme
Through April 11
Space Gallery, 400 Santa Fe Drive
Space Gallery is opening two shows in honor of Mo’Print. In one, Print Educators of Colorado display their own work, displaying the depth of their artistic practices as well as their commitment as educators cultivating the future of printmaking. Meanwhile, Sue Oehme’s Uprising includes art based on formal (and abstract) elements of art making, such as color and spatial relationships, line and form, and the varieties of mark making. “My best work comes at times when I feel that I have almost lost myself in the process, and the work is nearly on a subconscious level, but in the end my formal training comes back into the formula to make corrections and bring balance to a piece,” Oehme says.

Press On
Through April 12
Sync Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
Featuring the work of Debra Livingston and Karen Wharton, Livigston says Press On refers to the fact that her art in this show started as a print created on an etching press. For the show, she recycled her old prints into new artworks by transforming them with drawings, collage, and encaustic wax. Meanwhile, Wharton’s body of work is a tribute to the rhythms, shapes and colors that she appreciates here in Colorado and when she travels.

Santosha
Through April 12
931 Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
Cristina Bowes’s Santosha — Complete Contentment, invites viewers to explore the feeling of being content. “Each work emerges from a practice of allowing things to simply be as they are. Rather than pushing toward a predetermined meaning or trying to prove a point, the process became one of listening, noticing, and accepting what unfolded.” Bowes’s work is characterized by oil abstract paintings that utilize color, movement and composition.

A Redefined Pull
Through April 12
Niza Knoll Gallery, 915 Santa Fe Drive
This Mo’Print exhibition featuring the work of Victoria Eubanks with Linda Armacost, Loretta Foyle, Janey Hubschman and Jon Lew, highlights how artists reinterpret the medium, “pushing beyond its traditional boundaries to explore texture, layering, transparency, and chance.” Gelatin printing, or gelli printing, is a monoprint method that utilizes a soft, reusable gel slab as the “plate.” See a demonstration of the art form at a March 21 event.

Parting Gift: Fitting in America and An Impossibly Normal Life 
Through April 18
Colorado Photographic Arts Center, 1200 Lincoln Street, Suite 111
Two solo exhibitions will be on display at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. Leonard Suryajaya’s Parting Gift: Fitting in America explores living in the U.S. while his family remains in Indonesia through “elaborately staged photographs to explore distance, belonging, and who is allowed to be seen as family in America today.” In Matthew Finley’s An Impossibly Normal Life, Finley imagines an alternate, more accepting world where queerness is unremarkable. He uses vintage found photographs, ephemera, and embellished imagery to tell the fictional story of his Uncle Ken and celebrate everyday queer joy.

The Illusion of Paradise and The Idiot’s Defense
Through April 18
David B. Smith Gallery, 1543 Wazee Street
Two new exhibitions are opening at David B. Smith Gallery. The Illusion of Paradise is a solo exhibition by San Diego-based Peruvian artist Sylvia Fernández that features stretched paintings mounted back-to-back and suspended throughout the Main Gallery, speaking to themes of “paradise as an emotional and physical territory, nature as solace, and the potential for optimism are among the many paths
laid out in the exhibition.” Meanwhile, The Idiot’s Defense features work by Denver-based artist Dmitri Obergfell in the project room. The show “presents a series of sculptures — including vases, figural sculpture, smoking paraphernalia, and a chess set — set atop clear pedestals and custom wood furniture. Blending functional design objects and sculptural elements as well as combining both ancient and pop references, together the works contemplate the frameworks that shape experience.”

Dans Le Rêve
Through April 18
Leon Gallery, 1112 E 17th Avenue
Featuring new work by Denver-based artist Sandi Calistro, Dans Le Rêve explores grief, loss and growth. “Grief has changed me forever, and it took years to understand that this transformation does not have to be tragic,” Calistro writes in an artist statement for the show. “Some of the most beautiful change emerges when we allow ourselves to sit with our darkest thoughts and feelings. Melancholy has long fueled my work, and I have learned to embrace it as both teacher and companion.”

Purse as a Portal
Through April 19
CHAC Gallery, 834 Santa Fe Drive
In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council and the Women’s Caucus for Art – Colorado Chapter present Purse as a Portal, “a collaborative exhibition that explores what women carry—physically, emotionally, socially, and ancestrally.” Included artworks span a variety of 2D and 3D mediums, highlighting the intersection of art, identity, and storytelling, honoring women’s voices across generations and cultures. “My body represents my purse portal. I carry my roots, familia, tradition, spirituality, love, memories and community. The portal allows me to make room for all the good things to enter my space,” says Gayedine Rodriguez, artist and curator at CHAC Gallery.

Sum It Up
Through April 23
POST Gallery, 910 Santa Fe Drive, Studio 12B
In an experimental DIY group show uniting artists and designers nationwide through expressive typography and the US Postal Service, Sum It Up “responds to the State Department’s switch from Calibri to Times New Roman, inviting participants to reclaim sans-serif type as a tool for resistance and creative freedom.” All submissions were sent by mail.

Life Force
Through April 28
Commons Gallery, 218 West Colorado Avenue, Colorado Springs
Inspired by the Greg Niemeyer quote, “Graffiti is a life force in a city, that says to every citizen, I’m alive. A city without graffiti is like a field without flowers,” Life Force is a solo show featuring work by JPEAKE. The show contains “elements of graffiti, street art in his urban pop surrealistic worlds not seen in the natural world.” Reserve a spot here.

So On & So Forth
Through April 30
A. R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art, 150 East Main Street, Trinidad
So On & So Forth – A Celebration of the Idiosyncratic is a group show featuring the work of Colorado artists Rick Dallago, Michael Dowling, Charles T Levesque, Julia Martin, and Megan Wilbar. Curated by former Hollywood film producer and location scout-turned painter Dallago, the exhibition “examines the ways we perceive ourselves (and one another) through humor, irony, and layered storytelling.”

Yes &…
Through May 3
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 1750 13th Street, Boulder
In Yes &…, eighteen contemporary visual artists are “united by their human-centered focus and perspective” as AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous. The artists of Yes & remind viewers of what it means to be human through colorful, imperfect and beautiful work.

Nightcap
Through May 3
Pon Pon, 2528 Walnut Street
Instant photography nightlife documentarian Shadows Gather has a new show opening at Pon Pon in the RiNo Art District — a space tied to the project’s origin story. Working primarily with Instax instant film, Shadow has built an ongoing archive of raw nightlife
portraits since 2019, documenting queer, punk, goth, and underground scenes as lived — not staged. Nightcap includes photos taken in Denver from 2019 to the present, and guests are encouraged to encounter the art casually while ordering a drink, talking with friends or passing through the room. “This was supposed to be my first solo exhibit in 2020. The bar and gallery closed because of COVID, and the show never happened,” Shadow says. “Coming back to do it now, in the same space, feels like picking up something that just got paused for a few years. Pon Pon has been part of this project from the beginning. It’s where I go. It’s home.”

Gary Simmons: Rush
Through May 9
Cookie Factory, 425 West Fourth Avenue
The Cookie Factory‘s latest show features the work of Gary Simmons, known for using erasure as both a material process and a conceptual strategy. Recognized for his unconventional use of the blackboard, Simmons brings the medium into the exhibition space, drawing with chalk and partially erasing it by hand, commenting on history, imposed identities and a liberated vision of the future.

Ecosystems
Through May 15
DAVA, 1405 Florence Street, Aurora
In conjunction with Mo’Print, DAVA students ages 3 to 18, and guest artists Faith Williams Dyrsten, Virginia Diaz Saiki, Kristin Smith and Johanna Mueller represent animals, plants, and their ecosystems to raise awareness about the importance of biodiversity through a variety of printmaking techniques.

Nuestras Historias
Through May 17
Museo de las Americas, 861 Santa Fe Drive
Nuestras Historias/Our Stories is Museo de las Americas’ first-ever youth-curated exhibition, featuring work from young artists exploring themes of tradition, justice, identity and playfulness through embroidery, painting, drawing, ceramics, poetry and video.

YALLA and (UN)SEEN
Through May 17
RedLine Contemporary Art Center, 2350 Arapahoe Street
YALLA is a solo exhibition featuring photographs and ephemera from Brooklyn-based, Lebanese, Palestinian-American photographer Marwan Shousher, while (UN)SEEN challenges viewers to see Palestinians as complete individuals with a deep connection to their land, ancestors, and the traditions they carry, featuring photographs of Colorado Palestinian families taken by local artists.

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.

Upcoming Art Shows and Events

Art on the Walls
Friday, April 3, 5 to 10 p.m.
Independent art studios, 331 14th Street
The Unibrow Collective invites local artists and collectors to this free community event, where artists can bring their work, hang it on the walls of a provided gallery space, and manage their own sales.

Snack Attack!
Saturday, April 4, 5 to 10 p.m.
Spectra Art Space, 1836 South Broadway
Enjoy complimentary drinks and tarot readings at this food-themed art show, a playful and nostalgic exhibition looking into the aesthetics of appetite and food as a universal language. Learn more and RSVP here.

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