With a new co-op shows, a party or two with Shadows Gather at No Vacancy, an artist talk and a comic-book release, there's plenty more to see and do. Keep reading for the best art events this weekend:
Lui Ferreyra
Art Can, 2500 Larimer Street
Fridays and Saturdays, August 25 through September 7, 4 to 9 p.m.
Artist Lui Ferreyra, known for his figurative and landscape paintings rendered in subtly arranged organic and geometric blocks of color (and recently, textural digitally drawn portraits), takes over the Ramble Hotel’s Art Can pop-up for a couple of weeks for regular weekend hours and occasional artist-determined slots.
Images by Shadows Gather, scanned from Fuji Instax film format and printed on archival paper.
Shadows Gather
No Vacancy, 3722 Chestnut Place
Point and Shoot Photography Social: Thursday, August 26, 7 to 9 p.m.
The Macabaret With Hexxorsis Drag Performance
Saturday, August 28, 8:30 to 11:30 p.m.
The Denver nightlife photographer and No Vacancy resident Shadow, known for her Shadows Gather series, is throwing shows and parties left and right this weekend, beginning with Thursday’s Point and Shoot Photography Social, comprising a show of her own works alongside images by local photographer friends Tiller Dittio, Risa Friedman, Yvens Alex Saintil and Shane Still. On Saturday, the frisky traveling Macabaret revue brings back Hexxorsis and a bevy of local drag queens.
Lydia Riegle and Jean Smith: Shaken, Stirred, Savored
Suzanne Frazier Retrospective: 5 Decades of Art, in the East Gallery
D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
August 26 through September 19
Opening Reception: Friday, August 27, 6 to 9 p.m.
Meet the Artists: Sunday, September 19, 1 to 4 p.m.
Longtime Denver ceramics artist and co-op veteran Jean Smith pairs up with abstract painter Lydia Riegle, who’s been on the gallery scene for ten years or so, for a well-matched duo, carrying on the co-op tradition at D’art, one of Denver’s newest artist-run galleries. In the East Gallery, D’art matriarch Suzanne Frazier designed her own decades-long retrospective of landscapes and nature-inspired works painted in a trademark contemplative style. Frazier’s work has been a familiar old friend in galleries throughout the metro Denver region since 1990.
Sue Simon, Why Us, Virus?
Michaele Keyes, Remnants
Angela Larson, No Idea, in the North Gallery
Spark Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
August 26 through September 19
Open House: Saturday, August 28, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Spark hosts a threesome of solo shows: Sue Simon waxes on the pandemic with science-based abstracts, Michaele Keyes scoops up wood, shingles and natural materials from the landscape to create mixed-media works, and Angela Larson plays with text and encaustic in the North Gallery.
Aesthetic Side Chair, early-mid 1880s, design attributed to Christopher Dresser (1834–1904). Wood and upholstery.
Collection Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art, Denver
Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art, 1201 Bannock Street
August 27 through January 2
The Kirkland is back after its unfortunate burst-pipe episode during last February’s polar vortex deep freeze. After extensive repairs and some art restorations, the jewel of an art museum will reopen with a new show, Truth, Beauty and Power: Christopher Dresser and the Aesthetic Movement, devoted to a late-nineteenth-century master designer who defined the age of “Art for Art’s Sake.” Included in the exhibition is a five-legged chair — upholstered with a stunning peacock feather design — that’s only recently been attributed to Dresser through research, and other objects created in the name of beauty.
Artist Blake Chamness celebrates the release of his comic book Sentience #1 with a show of original comic art and more.
Blake Chamness
Stephanie Kranstover, Aquí Estoy
Next Gallery, Art Hub, 6851 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
August 27 through September 12
Opening and Comic Release Party: Friday, August 28, 6 to 10 .m.
Blake Chamness’s show Sentience, opening at Next Gallery on Friday, is all about a comic book about a robot — his first — and the creative process that produced it. Along with the official book release at the opening, see sketches, original art and even a smattering of fan art. You can say you knew him when. Member Stephanie Kranstover’s installation, on the other hand, references personal growth through the phrase “aquí estoy” (“Here I am”) as it relates to her own life from childhood to the present. The group show Dreams and Visions continues in the community gallery.
Collective Misnomer: Disarm the Right to Violence!: Recent Mexican Experimental Short Films
Buntport Theater parking lot, 717 Lipan Street
Friday, August 27, 9 p.m.
Free
The experimental film series Collective Misnomer turns the screen over to filmmaker Travis Wilkerson, who will be showing work created by students in a series of workshops he conducted at UNAM in Mexico City over two years. And the films are not for the squeamish: They are personal pieces inspired by the theme of femicide and violence against women. Collective Misnomer will now screen free in the parking lot at Buntport Theater, so bring your own chair or blanket and the usual open mind.
Chelsea Kaiah, beaded bag with multi-colored quills, contemporary and vintage beads, hide, horse hair, metal findings, Blue Bird Flour bag lining.
Chelsea Kaiah
Friend of a Friend Gallery, Evans School, 1115 Acoma Street, Suite 321
August 28 through September 25
Opening Reception, Saturday, August 28, 6 to 9 p.m.
For appointments and inquiries email [email protected] or message on Instagram
Friend of a Friend gives exposure to artists off the beaten gallery path, and that more than applies to Second Skin First Body, which includes installations by Chelsea Kaiah, a beadworker and artist born on the Uncompahgre Ute reservation of mixed Ute, Apache and Irish heritage, and Ry La, a Denver-based multi-disciplinary artist and tattoo artist. Themes of growing beyond one’s roots and culture while never being quite one or the other will flow through the double exhibition.
Plein air painting at the Art Students League of Denver Summer Art Market.
Courtesy of Art Students League of Denver
Art Students League, 200 Grant Street
Saturday and Sunday, August 28 and 29, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily
Admission: $5 in advance at Eventbrite (good for both days; free for children ages twelve and under)
The Art Students League of Denver’s Summer Art Market is celebrating its 28th anniversary and its re-emergence onto the street at Second Avenue and Grant Street after going virtual in 2020 — and so should you. Nearly a hundred artist vendors will set up shop outdoors to hawk art in nine categories this weekend, while shoppers shop and enjoy cool beverages, faculty demos and kids’ art activities. The only big change this year is the crowd-controlling admission charge — $5 for a weekend pass (kids twelve and under are still admitted for free).
Karen Watkins & Zachary Reece, Wild Aspirations by Design
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Belmar, Lakewood
Through September 19
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 28, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Valkarie members Karen Watkins and Zachary Reece share the gallery’s walls with spooky wildlife imagery (Watkins) and black-and-white digital drawings that begin with pointillistic dots and are then overlayed with geometric designs (Reece). Nature, meet science. Both styles have a certain charm.
Julie Lee, “Pride and Joy,” 2021. ©Julie Lee, courtesy of CPAC.
Julie Lee
Tuesday, August 31, noon, online via Zoom
Free, register in advance for Zoom link
What are the rules about using anonymous source materials in art photography? The Colorado Photographic Art Center sheds light on that theme for the current show, Source Material, with a panel talk by curators Jon Feinstein and Roula Seikaly of the Humble Arts Foundation and some of the contributing artists.
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected].
