Praise be for our co-ops and their members as they look forward to a new year and continued growth, COVID or no COVID. Several artist-run galleries have member-show openings this weekend that will serve as windows to future shows in 2022, complete with receptions and artist talks.
And there's more to see in Denver as we head to the close of 2021:
D’art & Friends Members Invitational Show
D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Through February 6
Artist Talks: Morgan McKenna and Peder Morgenthaler: Sunday, December 19, 1:30 p.m.
D’art Gallery’s holiday lineup shifts to include the annual D’art & Friends Members Invitational Show, a 36-artist interdisciplinary group show that pairs each member’s work with an invited friend’s in dedicated spaces. The mix includes dancers and poets, who will perform during a series of artist talks and special receptions, running every weekend through Sunday, February 6. The Simply Small Members Art Market also continues through Friday, January 7, in Gallery East. D’art will also host special Christmas week shopping hours from Monday, December 20, through Friday, December 24, from noon to 5 p.m.
Maria Valentina Sheets, "Wisdom Lantern."
Maria Valentina Sheets
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Belmar, Lakewood
Through Sunday, January 9
Maria Sheets, whose great-uncle was a Russian Orthodox priest and iconographer, takes stained-glass art to a higher level. Using the old-world art materials used by her relative, including natural gesso, clay bole, egg tempera, ground pigments and gold, Sheets bends tradition by painting modern imagery directly on stained glass. Valkarie is loaded to the rafters with art to end the year, with a resident artists' show and an exhibition by Mad Tatters continuing alongside Sheets’s work.
Annual Members Show: Sync Connected
Sync Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
Through Friday, January 14
Sync Gallery joins other spaces in mounting a year-end members' show. Expect an exhibition heavy on airy abstracts, with some landscape, figurative, clay and photographic works.
Josh Davy's lonely drawings of industrial ruins go on display at Talk Gallery.
Josh Davy, Talk Gallery
Talk Gallery, 4382 South Broadway, Englewood
By appointment, 303-676-8007
Artist Josh Davy, whose work at the co-op Next Gallery in Lakewood leans toward metalwork, robot assemblages and uninhabited clay buildings, shows a different yet connected side for a solo show at Talk Gallery in Englewood. Davy’s fascination with abandoned buildings is again reflected in accurately rendered pencil drawings of old factories and other industrial ruins, this time in response to a therapeutic cross-country trip taken to visit and reconnect with his estranged father in a time of need. Some of his clay works will stand alongside.
Michael Dowling: Myths of Realism
Roy Nydorf: Intimate Works
Waiting Room Gallery, 3258 Larimer Street
Through January 30
Closing Reception: Friday, January 28, 6 to 10 p.m.
Another non-traditional Denver gallery, the Waiting Room, housed in the second- and third-floor corridors of the Oxpecker Building in RiNo, will tout the master draftsman Michael Dowling and multi-faceted artist Roy Nydorf through the end of January, bookended by opening and closing receptions. See the website for regular daytime visiting hours.
RISE Group Show
Bitfactory Gallery, 851 Santa Fe Drive
Through January 13
Bitfactory throws an exhibition by thirteen local women artists, noting that creative members of the female gender still don’t get near enough credit for their work, even in the 21st century. One giant step for women as they march into a new year. Show up and give support.
Converse with Santa at the Dikeou Pop-up Winter Solstice Reception.
Courtesy of the Dikeou Collection
Dikeou Pop-Up: Colfax, 312 East Colfax Avenue
Tuesday, December 21, 6 to 8 p.m.
Celebrate the season while catching up with a different view of Devon Dikeou’s Mid-Career Smear retrospective at the informal half of the Dikeou Collection, located in the former Jerry’s Record Exchange storefront. Dikeou’s “Donation” installation has been decked out with a winter floral arrangement in the courtyard, where Dikeou Collection artist Lizzi Bougatsos also shares a “Self-Portrait” ice sculpture; for the main event, see Dikeou's performance piece “You Better Watch Out,” an interactive discussion with a professional Santa of who’s been bad and who’s been good this year—with a milk-and-cookies denouement.
plan ahead:
Pirate Group Show
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, December 31, through Sunday, January 9
Pirate’s annual group show jumps into the new year with high hopes and awesome art. Come by and give the members a hand for longevity as one of Denver’s original, groundbreaking co-ops.
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected].
