The don’t-miss of the week, however, is Donald Fodness’s art exhibition and curation project double-header at the Evans School on Saturday, June 22. Mark that in your calendar now, and the rest will follow.
Public Art at Hogan Park
Hogan Park, 24495 East 35th Drive, Highlands Creek, Aurora
Way up in the far northeast corner of Aurora, just past E-470, Aurora Highlands is rising on the prairie as a new suburban model of mixed housing and community focal points, including schools, amenities and a playground with a children’s carousel. Hogan Park, a 100-acre open space along Highlands Creek envisioned by Aurora Highlands visionary Carla Ferreira, could well be the burgeoning development’s centerpiece. A meandering outdoor art museum and recreation center with public art spaced out along the trail, Hogan Park will also eventually boast open-air performance spaces, climbing walls, a zip line, pollinator gardens and other attractions.
The most recent park artworks to be dedicated include a collaboration between American neon artist Olivia Steele and Berlin-based graffiti artist and muralist Snyder, “The Only Way Out Is Through,” which brings light while passing under a bridge, and Belgian artist Michael Benisty’s "Broken but Together," a monumental mirrored stainless-steel sculpture of a couple that would be right at home on the Burning Man playa. Also along the trail, hikers will find Umi, a Gaia-themed monumental work by South African artist Daniel Popper that was unveiled last summer. Umi drew national attention, bringing visitors to the park from across the country. If you go, use this handy map to find these and other art installations in Hogan Park.
Gerald Clarke, “Continuum Basket: Pivat,” 2020, 1,840 crushed aluminum beer and soda cans.
Gerald Clarke, BreckCreate
Megan Geckler, Tunnel Vision
Old Masonic Hall, 136 South Main Street, Breckenridge
Through September 1
Gerald Clarke Reception/Artist Talk: Friday, August 23, 5:30 p.m.
As Breckenridge ramps up for this year’s Breckenridge International Festival of the Arts in August, BIFA exhibiting artists Gerald Clarke, a citizen of the Cahuilla Band of Indians in southern California, and Megan Geckler, who uses flagging tape to weave, layer, cut up, tie, suspend, design and otherwise create eye-popping installations, already have exhibitions of their typical work up through September 1. Clark’s show, The Door Is Open, serves as a thirty-year retrospective of interdisciplinary works that comment on Indigenous life in a country broken by colonialism, while Geckler’s Tunnel Vision invites audiences to explore every niche of the art. As Geckler says, “I’ve done my job if it looks like a computer threw up in the space.” Both will participate in BIFA’s Trail Mix series of outdoor art and performances scattered through the woods around town; Clark will be placing “historical monuments” from a Native point of view along the Illinois Creek Trail, while Geckler will wrap tree trunks with flagging tape on Moonstone Trail and replace invasive weed patches with small lawn flags on Iowa Hill Trail.
Tenth Anniversary Exhibition X.iv
Michael Warren Contemporary, 760 Santa Fe Drive
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 5 to 8 p.m.
Eleven gallery artists — Jennifer Bain, Angela Faris, Jody Guralnick, Liz Hickok, Trey Hill, Jeff Horton, Maggie Lawless, Collin Parson, Brad Reed Nelson, Andrew Roberts-Gray and Tina Suszynski — headline the fourth leg of Michael Warren Contemporary’s tenth-anniversary exhibition series for another splash of styles, mediums and visuals. Got a favorite among this bunch? Go see the work you love, and perhaps you’ll discover another artist’s work to adore.
Frankie Toan, Flowers for Friends
Post Residency, Studio 12B, 910 Santa Fe Drive
Plant Exchange and Art Opening: Friday, June 21, 6 to 8 p.m.
The Post Residency offers post-patriarchal opportunities for LGBTQ+, BIPOC individuals and women artists seeking to find their places in a brave new art world. Summer begins with resident artist Frankie Toan, who invites viewers to a participatory opening evening that doubles as a plant swap. Toan’s art, curated by Kenzie Sitterud, will include individual soft wall sculptures and works from an ongoing series, Queer Gardens, which continues to morph and revel in flora and freedom to be. And if you were worried, there will be a few extra plants to share for folks who don’t have one to give, so everyone can commune in the trading party.
Nicole Korbe, “Identity,” oil and cold wax.
Nicole Korbe
NKollectiv, 960 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, June 21, through July 14
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 6 to 9 p.m.
Nicole Korbe, who works in encaustic and cold wax with oils, and James Garnett, a clay artist who practices Raku firing, using water to cool each vessel or form, both rely on transformative hot and cold techniques as artists. But they have even more in common: Korbe’s cityscapes and Garnett’s house shapes both reference climate change and changing temperatures.
Charlie Price, Fabrication
Naked Ray Gallery, 811 28th Street
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 4 to 8 p.m.
Hair artist Charlie Price is known for his outrageous and artistic way with runway coiffures, but also with his hair staging for the camera or IRL. For Fabrication, Price takes that talent forward to look inside the living, breathing mind of what we usually call a “mannequin,” inspired by how people raise a shiny veneer over their images on social media. Fabrication opens Friday at the hip, fashion-forward new RiNo gallery Naked Ray; bring your for-real face.
Maria Valentina Sheets, Trial by Fire
To the Core: Core Members Show
Jude Barton, The Sun and the Moon and the Price of Indigo, in the Annex
Core Art Space, 6501 West Colfax Avenue
Friday, June 21, through July 7 (Jude Barton, through July 11)
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 5 to 10 p.m.
Maria Sheets already occupies a rare niche in the art world, inspired by her great-uncle, a Russian Orthodox priest and iconographer to apply his old-world art materials on stained glass to create both traditional religious imagery or modern portraits and scenes rife with politics. At her most modern, she’s even done fabrication work for notable artist Judy Chicago. Now she’s introduced a new technique to her toolbox: Vitreonics, a process in which glass is smashed, layered and heated. The result gives her a ghost image suffused within the glass, and she’s used it to create, among other things, a series of portraits of friends and colleagues that are something to see. Also on view at Core are a members’ show and photographs by Jude Barton in the Annex.
Christine Rose Curry: Plastic Botanist
Mala Setaram-Wolfe: C’est la Vie
EDGE Satellite Member Summer Solstice Show
Edge Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue
Friday, June 21, through July 7
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 6 to 9 p.m.
Edge debuts new shows by Christine Rose Curry, whose upcycled assemblages of plastic trash and paint take on a botanical theme for Plastic Botanist, and mixed-media artist Mala Setaram-Wolfe, who muses on the meaning of her show’s title, C’est la Vie. Also on view: A group exhibition by ten gallery satellite members.
Ripple Effect: A Next Gallery Invitational
Next Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue
Friday, June 21, through July 7
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 5 to 10 p.m.
Next hands its galleries over to the artists chosen for the invitational show, Ripple Effect, a meditation on passing along new visions as stones raising ripples in the water. The work varies from still life to abstract, paint to clay, and additional styles and media.
Lois Lupica and David C. Dixon, Light
Sync Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
Through July 14
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 5 to 9 p.m.
Sync Gallery members Lois Lupica and David C. Dixon turn on the Light for their shared exhibition of Lupica’s encaustic and cold wax paintings and Dixon’s photography, whether in sharp colors or black and white. Look for both high-contrast scenarios and purely glowing abstract imagery.
Workshop II: Artists Mentored by Tadashi Hayakawa
Bitfactory Gallery, 851 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, June 21, through July 13
Opening Reception: Friday, June 21, 6 to 9 p.m.
Artist Tadashi Hayakawa often leads workshops as an artist mentor at Bitfactory, where he seeks to loosen up the minds and bodies of participants enough for them to paint freely and from the heart — something that’s not always as easy as it sounds. Nine students from his most recent workshop will show eighteen works they created during the session, which were blind-juried by Bitfactory gallerist Bill Thomason. Have a look-see and decide whether or not you’ll be among the next to work with Hayakawa. It might be worth a try.
Donald Fodness,“Spongebob Crossing the Livestream,” installation detail.
Donald Fodness, Neufolk Gallery
TAD Projects: Don't Shoot the Pixel: Unveiling the Art of AI
Neufolk Gallery, Room 220, Evans School Building, 1115 Acoma Street
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 22, 6 to 9 p.m.
Donald Fodness, whose drawings, assemblages and installations tend to be hilariously absurd, satirical, pop-culture-saturated and hypothetically a little foreboding, has a field day at Neufolk Gallery in the Evans School Building with a solo exhibition, …Best Day Ever (Goofy Goober), inside the gallery and another buzzy one-day show in the hallway that he co-curated as part of the TAD Project series he runs with colleague Tobias Fike. Don’t Shoot the Pixel: Unveiling the Art of AI, a group showcase for Tod Dobbs, William Dalton Frizzell, Hannah Purvis and Peter Yumi, all pioneers who incorporate AI in their work, ought to stir up some arty conversation. As for the solo, here’s just a taste: Fodness spoofs Emanuel Leutze's painting “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” with SpongeBob Squarepants standing in for the gallant first president, while another from his Dysfunctional Multitools series is a plain-dumb safe that anyone could crack, though it protects a gun, drugs and money. Between you and me, this evening is not to miss.
GOCA Family Day
Ent Center, 5225 North Nevada Avenue, Colorado Springs
Saturday, June 22, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; free
In preparation for the upcoming exhibition We Are the Sky, a showcase for more than forty artists working in the Pikes Peak region that opens in July, the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art in Colorado Springs will host a free all-ages Family Day of hands-on art demos and tutorials, covering everything from indigo fabric dyeing to paper landscape collage, all led by artists participating in the upcoming show. Yes, there will be a mess. Dress accordingly.
Laura Ellen Bacon, “Rêverie,” a temporary exhibit for Département de L’Eure en Normandie at Château-Gaillard as part of Journées Européenes du Patrimonie 2023, stripped willow.
Photo by Laura Ellen Bacon
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Sunday, June 23, through fall
British artist Laura Ellen Bacon arrived at the Denver Art Museum earlier in June to begin the work-intensive task of building Rejuvenation, a monumental, twenty-foot installation woven from a 500-pound cache of willow branches. The sculpture, Bacon’s inaugural U.S. installation, will climb up the Hamilton Building atrium’s four-story wall after completion, with an on-view date of Sunday, June 23, as a sideshow to the current exhibition Biophilia: Nature Reimagined.
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected].
