Far North & Outer Space. Far North & Outer Space, now at Goodwin Fine Art, features new work by Beau Carey and Lanny DeVuono, both of whom create contemporary paintings based obliquely on views of the landscape. Many of the Careys are snow scenes and were inspired by a National Park Service artist-residency he did in a cabin at the base of Denali in Alaska. Carey is interested in mashing up styles, and his paintings are typically hybrids of landscapes and color-field abstractions. To say that the DeVuono paintings provide the perfect complement to the Careys would be an understatement, as she, too, blends straight representation with color-field abstraction. DeVuono's views are hypothetical scenes of Mars, and she notes their similarity to the views of the Southwest. Most have two elements — a very complex gray-tone detail of the Martian landscape and a dreamy color field meant to convey the planet's atmosphere. Through November 1 at Goodwin Fine Art, 1255 Delaware Street, 303-573-1255, goodwinfineart.com. Reviewed September 18.
Libertone, McGuinness,
and
Carpenter. Though the main gallery at Spark is usually cut into two spaces when there are two solos on display, Andy Libertone: Seldom Seen has been installed together with Katharine McGuinness: New. Libertone, who was one of the founders of Spark more than thirty years ago, has taken a selection of his work from the 1970s to the 1990s, most of which has never been shown before, as suggested by the title. "Bags Grove," from the '70s, is a showstopper, a funky tangle meant to evoke the visual equivalent of jazz. There are also a number of neo-deco works related to his masterpiece: the little metal pavilion that sits southeast of Sixth Avenue and Speer Boulevard. Surrounding the Libertones are McGuinness's lyrical abstract paintings, which comprise natural shapes and muted colors. These paintings were inspired by ordinary sights — gardens and trees — but the artist points out that they are based on the memories of their colors, not their forms. In the north gallery, there's Barbara Carpenter: Morocco: Faces and Places, a small exhibit made up of color images that sometimes verge on being found abstractions. Through October 26 at Spark Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200, sparkgallery.com.Michael Brohman
and
Walter Barton. It isn't often that Michael Brohman's work could be described as somber ("outrageous" is more often what comes to mind), but that's the case with Horizons, now in the main space at Pirate. The magnum opus is "Borders," a monumental bronze-and-wood installation anchoring the entire exhibit. In it, Brohman means to refer to events in the past, in particular the Holocaust, and to those in the present, specifically the immigrant children at our southern border. Brohman has taken salvaged boards and stacked them up into a horizontal stand that's nearly twelve feet long. The joint lines between the boards are visible and are meant to convey the stripes on a prison uniform. On top are scores of armless figures lined up shoulder to shoulder, staring out. It's very impressive. Also intriguing is the title piece, which comprises three Doric-column fragments with little toy horses on top. Using found wood, both processed and natural, Walter Barton has put together lyrical constructions that recall the forms of furniture for his solo, Urban Wood, in the associate space. Through October 26 at Pirate Contemporary Art, 3655 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058, pirateartonline.org.Unbound: Sculpture in the Field. Since the Arvada Center sits on a very large site, exhibitions manager Collin Parson and assistant curator Kristen Bueb decided recently to use a small part of it – a seventeen-acre field just to the south of the complex – as a xeric sculpture garden. Parson and Bueb invited Cynthia Madden Leitner of the Museum of Outdoor Arts in Englewood to partner with the center in the effort. MOA has made a specialty of placing large pieces of sculpture in various spots around metro Denver, and that technical expertise was very desirable. The group put together a list of sculptors they wanted to include, and the final roster of fifteen artists was established, with most being represented by two pieces. The participating artists, all of whom live in Colorado and work in abstraction or conceptual abstraction, are Vanessa Clarke, Emmett Culligan, John Ferguson, Erick Johnson, Andy Libertone, Nancy Lovendahl, Robert Mangold, Patrick Marold, David Mazza, Andy Miller, Charles Parson, Carl Reed, Joe Riché, Kevin Robb and Bill Vielehr. Through September 30, 2015, at the Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Boulevard, 720-898-7200, arvadacenter.org. Reviewed July 10.
