Courtesy of Jill Hadley Hooper
Audio By Carbonatix
If this week’s new art shows share a theme, it’s about finding your place and how that is interpreted: through a landscape; learning to tell personal stories with a camera, paintbrush or a lump of clay; claiming freedom from colonialism or escaping from repression; finding your community.
What are you searching for in 2024? Get some ideas at the events listed below:
Benjamin Walling, “A Night in Rome.”
Benjamin Walling
Hinterlands: Katy Betz, Alane Holsteen and Benjamin Walling
Chinese New Year Retrospective
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Wednesday, January 10, through February 4
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 13, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Valkarie greets 2024 and frigid temperatures with a show of serene landscapes from three points of view: those of Katy Betz, who favors Colorado mountain views, rustic buildings and florals; Alane Holsteen, whose landscapes rendered in encaustic pigments are loose and lightly abstracted; and Benjamin Walling, who chimes in with deeply shadowed classical pastorals and cityscapes. Also on view is a collection of Chinese zodiac animal submissions from past Valkarie Chinese New Year invitationals, from 2016 through 2023.
Hung Liu, “Modern Time,” 2005, oil on canvas with lacquered wood, cultural revolution clocks. (C) Hung Liu Estate/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
(C) Hung Liu Estate/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Hung Liu: Control and Freedom
Shwayder Art Building Lobby, 2121 East Asbury Avenue
Thursday, January 11, through March 24
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 11, 5 to 7 p.m.
Work by the late artist Hung Liu, who left communist China to escape creative repression under the rule of Mao Zedong, will hang in the lobby of the University of Denver’s Shwayder Art Building, offering a thirty-year spread of paintings, prints and tapestries.
A still from Gregg Deal’s “The Last American Indian on Earth.”
Courtesy of the artist
Cowboy Conversations: “Myth-Busting,” with Gregg Deal and Mel Chin
MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater, 2644 West 32nd Avenue
Thursday, January 11, 7 p.m.
Admission: $5 to $20 at Eventbrite
Graphic novelist R. Alan Brooks is back at the Holiday to moderate another conversation regarding MCA Denver’s current exhibition, Cowboy, shooting questions and engaging in a lively exchange with artists Gregg Deal and Mel Chin. Like the show itself, the talk will drift toward a more inclusive history of cowboy culture, in terms of Deal’s take on Indigenous futurism and Chin’s work on the colonialization of Texas over five centuries. Tickets include a nice bargain: free admission to MCA Denver before the show closes on February 18.
Courtesy of Jill Hadley Hooper
Roots of an Era: Mixtape to the Old North Denver Art Scene
BRDG Project, 3300 Tejon Street
Friday, January 12, through February 4
Opening Reception: Friday, January 12, 6 to 10 p.m.
What goes around, comes around. A long-overdue group show, Roots of an Era, by co-op artists who pioneered the Northside in the ’80s until development pushed them out in the early 2000s, will make inroads at BRDG Gallery’s new location on Tejon Street – which now aims to reclaim the neighborhood. Several major players from the past are included in the show, and alongside their artwork, both old and new, a living wall of fliers and other co-op ephemera will provide some historical context.
Kate Gonda and Steven James Jackson Meyers, Pressure Cooker
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
Friday, January 12, through March 3
Opening Reception: Friday, January 12, 8 p.m. to late
Artists Kate Gonda and Steven James Jackson Meyers, both working in found-object sculpture, trade satirical quips and sociopolitical observations in Pressure Cooker, opening this weekend at Lane Meyer Projects. View carefully: The meaning is driven by the materials.
Bonny Lhotka, “Fracture One,” pigment on metal.
Bonny Lhotka, Walker Fine Art
Nomadic Daydreams
Walker Fine Art, 300 West 11th Avenue, Suite A
Friday, January 12, through March 16
Opening Reception: Friday, January 12, 5 to 8 p.m.
At Walker Fine Art, five artists mine landscapes and pristine nature in Nomadic Daydreams, a show that restores our place in the world to its prehistoric beginnings. But those subjects might be expressed in ultra-modern terms: Bonny Lhotka has added digital tweaking and the use of refractive materials to her toolbox, while mountain man George Kozmon layers mountain landscapes and topo maps, conveying the imagery in temporal shifts.
Richard Eisen, “Into the Flow of Winter.”
Richard Eisen, courtesy of Michael Warren Contemporary
SCAPES
Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder
Friday, January 12, through February 17
Opening Reception: Friday, January 12, 5 to 8 p.m.
In what’s turning into a big weekend for landscape interpretations, the Dairy offers SCAPES, which homes in on the title’s double entendre, which could be referring to green stems that rise straight from the root, or a depiction of the land. Multiple techniques and effects by artists Richard Eisen, David Hollander, Molly Kaderka and Pam Rogers build contrasting images that touch on similar subjects in SCAPES.
Works in Ana Balzán, Faces and Figures: Woman, Mother, Caregiver and Artist.
Ana Balzán
Ana Balzán, Faces and Figures: Woman, Mother, Caregiver and Artist
Kiln Kitchen
Firehouse Art Center, 667 4th Avenue, Longmont
Friday, January 12, through February 4
Opening Reception: Friday, January 12, 6 to 8 p.m.
Ana Balzán, Firehouse’s 2024 Artist Member of the Year, opens the year with Faces and Figures, a multi-faceted, autobiographical expression of her own walk through life using sculpture and painting. In Kiln Kitchen, members of the cultural facility’s ceramic-arts community get a chance to show off works that range from functional to fantastic.
Saloon: Kanon Group Show
Kanon Collective, Hub at 40 West, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Through January 26
Kanon members chose the “saloon” theme as a nod to Stock Show season, with artworks stretching it in every direction. Drop in and you’ll be rewarded with images of the Wild West, historical Denver, and the livestock and animals found in the barns at the National Western Stock Show.
Jason Alfaro, “Salvation Though Friendship.”
Jason Alfaro, courtesy of CPAC
Through Their Lens | Personal Photography by Veterans
Colorado Photographic Arts Center, 1200 Lincoln Street
Friday, January 12, through February 17
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 13, 5 to 8 p.m.
CPAC annually exhibits the work produced during the photography center’s Veterans Workshop, in which ten Coloradans who served in the military are prized with six months of free photography instruction toward completing personal projects. Through Their Lens includes work from the latest group’s portfolios as well as alumni works. A catalogue of this year’s show is available on Blurb for $16; proceeds help fund next year’s workshop.
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to editorial@westword.com.
