Fifteen Things for Art Lovers to Do and See in Denver This Week

It’s another banner week for gallery openings and art events around metro Denver, some of which come in groups: Five are clustered in Denver's Art District on Santa Fe; the Supernova Digital Animation Festival and Belmar’s Block 7 boast two each. As for the rest, you’ll find them at pioneering DIY spaces, co-ops, nonprofit arts organizations and arts districts, as well as everywhere else.
Robert Seidel, Tarnish
Understudy, 890 C 14th Street
Daily through September 29, noon to 7 p.m.
The Supernova Digital Animation Festival is spreading out in its third year, with an array of related gallery exhibitions and presentations across the city, from downtown Denver to Lakewood’s 40 West Arts District. Tarnish places Berlin-based Supernova guest judge and participant Robert Seidel at the Understudy incubator for a site-specific, multimedia installation that showcases the breadth of his art practice and demonstrates his concept of “moving paintings.” Be prepared to watch in wonder as light projections play across and within a sculptural structure with mirrored surfaces.
Evidence
Downtown Aurora Visual Arts, 1405 Florence Street, Aurora
September 20 through November 21
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 20, 4 to 7 p.m.
Mentoring youth growing up in the diverse urban corridor of downtown Aurora isn’t easy, and DAVA’s work is never done, but the results are always inspiring. The fall exhibition, Evidence, shows work created over the summer by a gamut of kids, from kindergartners to high-school students, exploring the intersection of art and science through diorama projects, job training and filmmaking. Engage with film screenings, a dinosaur sculpture and a mock crime-scene investigation at the opening.
Stevon Lucero, Lucid Dreams & Visions
BuCu West Development Association, 4200 Morrison Road
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 20, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
The Westwood Creative District pays tribute to Chicano artist and community stalwart Stevon Lucero with a solo exhibition of his signature Metarealist and Neo-Precolumbian paintings and prints. Meet and chat with the artist at the opening over noshes and beverages.
McNichols Project: ICON
Street Art Ink: From the Body to the Wall
Light in All Darkness: Images and Icons from William Hart McNichols
McNichols Building, 144 West Colfax Avenue
Exhibits run September 20 through January 6
Opening Party: Thursday, September 20, 6 to 9 p.m.
The McNichols Building launches two fall shows blending street and religious art; with partner ICON, the celebration goes beyond the usual art reception. The third-floor exhibition Street Art Ink comprises murals inspired by tattoo designs and traditions by Denver muralists Casey Kawaguchi and Sandi Calistro, both of whom also have backgrounds as tattoo artists; Light in All Darkness brings icon paintings by Father William Hart McNichols, a descendant of the political McNichols family for whom the building is named, along with Youth on Record: Celebrating 10 Years of Amplifying the Voices of Our Youth on the main floor, a historical paean to the music-focused nonprofit that serves at-risk Denver youth.
Reality Bytes
RedLine, 2350 Arapahoe Street
September 21 through October 28
Opening Reception: Friday, September 21, 6 to 9 p.m.
Reality Bytes, Supernova’s central exhibition, offers viewers a more intimate view of cutting-edge work by digital motion artists participating in the September 22 festival in downtown Denver. Featuring an international roster of more than 25 animators and multimedia artists, Reality Bytes is a look into the boundless world of new media, hosted by RedLine and curated by Supernova director Ivar Zeile. Here’s where to get an inside look at the weird and wonderful world of digital animation.
Urban Aggregate
Georgia Art Space, 952 Mariposa Street
Opening Reception: Friday, September 21, 7 to 11 p.m.
Open for Viewing: Saturday, September 22, and Sunday, September 23, noon to 5 p.m. daily.
Closing Reception: Monday, September 24, 7 to 10 p.m.
Artist Joshua Ware, who helped open the gallery at Georgia Art Space a year ago as its first subject, returns to Sommer Browning’s garage venue as a curator with a mission. For Urban Aggregate, a visual realization of Ware’s ideas about the converse facets of urban life and aesthetics, which can both draw people together or pull them apart, Ware gathered a blue-chip group of local artists to explore and comment on the living city from the inside out. A sound performance by Eric Baus will drive the opening reception; the closing event includes readings by poets Elisa Gabbert and Anna Moschovakis.
Proximity: Rian Kerrane and Susanne Mitchell
Mai Wyn Fine Art, 744 Santa Fe Drive
September 21 through October 28
Opening Reception: Friday, September 21, 6 to 9 p.m.
Sculptor and installationist Rian Kerrane and painter Susanne Mitchell join forces for Proximity, an examination of an inherent disconnect in direct communication, asking how much we really understand each other. A collaboration of well-executed, contrasting styles, it’s a must-see stop during the Art District on Santa Fe's Third Friday Collectors' Preview, First Friday’s chill and more civilized sister event.
Drew Austin, Not An Aggregation, But a Symphony
Adrienne DeLoe, Laboratory
Next Gallery, 6851 West Colfax Avenue Unit B, Lakewood
September 21 through October 7
Opening Reception: Friday, September 21, 6 to 10 p.m.
For his turn at Next Gallery, Drew Austin muses on the spiritual side of the primordial natural world with a series of delicate, large-scale mixed-media canvases where abstract and representational imagery intertwine. Fellow Next member Adrienne DeLoe’s Laboratory, a comment on the use of genetic engineering and biotechnology to cheat nature, uses scientifically altered insect specimens to prove her point.
Alicia Bailey, Almost Endless
Janice McDonald, ThroughLines
Mike Herburger, In-between
Spark Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
September 21 through October 14
Opening Reception: Friday, September 21, 6 to 9 p.m.
Alicia Bailey and Janice McDonald show what they do best, in out-of-the-box book-arts installations and layered and abstracted collages on wood panels, respectively, in Spark’s main gallery, while Mike Herburger offers a selection of pinhole photography in the north gallery. Compare and contrast as you walk through them all, and be sure to spend some time with Bailey’s meticulously constructed, drool-worthy book sculptures.
99 Pieces of Art on the Wall
Access Gallery, 909 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, September 21, 6 to 9 p.m.
$9.99
One of Access Gallery’s most enjoyable fundraisers, 99 Pieces of Art on the Wall is back for another year with a serendipitous chance to snap up an affordable piece of art. For a $9.99 entry fee, you can take your pick of works by a dazzling variety of artists from all levels and walks of life, all priced between $50 and $250. It’s first-come, first-served, so act fast! Proceeds benefit Access Gallery’s year-round art-based programming for young adults with disabilities—some of whom will have art up for grabs.
Queer Art Crawl and Collector Night
Boxcar Gallery, 554 Santa Fe Drive
808 Projects, 808 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, September 21, 6 to 8 p.m.
Artists Kenzie Sitterud, Frankie Toan and Katy Zimmerman, who all have a common interest in queer life and issues, simultaneously opened shows in solidarity at different galleries in the Art District on Santa Fe for this month's First Friday. For the district’s Third Friday Collectors’ Night, they invite friends, supporters and the general art-loving public to make the rounds to meet and learn more about each artist. Zimmerman starts off a series of art talks at 6 p.m. at Boxcar Gallery on September 21, after which the crawl moves on to 808, where Sitterud speaks at 6:40 p.m. and Toan finishes up with a slide talk at 7:20 p.m.
Juicy Editions Print Pop-up
JuiceBox Gallery, 3006 Larimer Street A
Friday, September 21, through Sepembter 23, open noon to 7 p.m. daily
Opening Reception: Friday, September 21, 6 p.m.
JuiceBox gives a nod to Denver's printmaking community with this pop-up, a display of affordable works inspired by the Denver Art Museum’s current exhibition of prints by Rembrandt. Don’t dawdle—the show closes shop after Sunday. Lemonade will be served.
In the Margins: Dance Performance and Artist Talk
Center for Visual Art, MSU Denver, 965 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, September 21, 4:30 to 7 p.m.
Suchitra Mattai’s tour-de-force exhibition Sugar Bound, now on view at CVA, is rooted in family history in Guyana, where her ancestors landed in the nineteenth-century Indo-Caribbean diaspora. Instead of a standard artist talk, Mattai will serve up a blend of culture and discussion that includes an Indian classical dance workshop at 4:30 p.m. and a semi-classical/Bollywood-style dance performance at 6 p.m., both helmed by her sister Sumitra, followed by a conversation with the sisters, facilitated by MSU Denver history professor Jacqueline A. McLeod. The event is presented in collaboration with MSU’s D-Phi, the Denver Project for Humanistic Inquiry, which happens to be run by Suchitra Mattai’s husband, Adam Graves.
Escape: Valerie Savarie and Sharon Eisley
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Through October 14
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 22, 5 to 9 p.m.
There’ll be plenty of activity on Belmar’s Block 7 on Saturday, beginning with a reception for the fifth year of paired solo exhibitions by Valkarie resident artists Sharon Eisley and Valerie Savarie. Eisley’s oeuvre is a fantasy of human-animal hybrids in watercolor and oils, while Savarie’s specialty is the altered book, rigorously cut and formed into three-dimensional sculptures. Together they’ll explore the topic of "escape," and at at 6:23 p.m. sharp during the opening, they’ll unveil personal cabinets of curiosity filled with smaller works, back by popular demand.
Over and Over: Morley and Kaitlin Ziesmer
Sally Centigrade Art Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Saturday, September 22, through October 19
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 22, 5 to 9:30 p.m.
Sally Centigrade joins Valkarie, which has its own dual art opening featuring Los Angeles-based street artist Morley, famous for his hip typographic posters, and Denver painter Kaitlin Ziesmer, who joins the neighboring gallery’s Sharon Eisley in portraying charming anthropomorphic creatures. This will be an affordable-art fest, with paintings for sale as well as prints, stickers and books.

Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected]. For more events this weekend, see our 21 Best Things to Do in Denver.