This list should keep you going:
Ira Sherman: Revenge, Protection, Redemption
Bitfactory Gallery, 851 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, August 19, through October 15
Opening Reception: Friday, August 19, 6 p.m.
The arc of Denver sculptor Ira Sherman’s career in metalsmithing jumps the rainbow from handmade jewelry to Judaica, but he’s best known, notoriously, for his strange, wearable “prostheses” and interactive kinetic sculptures loaded with human sensors that offer a bio-engineered experience to participants. That would include sci-fi-worthy metal chastity belts and contraptions that raise couples into the air. Fascinating and meticulously crafted, Sherman’s mechanized works have secured him a spot on the national map. After a three-year silence, he’s back in view at Bitfactory, ready to blow minds — and imaginations — with a new selection of machine dreams.
Elizabeth Ferrill and Jeff Horton explore architectural imagery in two solo shows at Michael Warren Contemporary.
Courtesy of Michael Warren Contemporary
Jeff Horton, Chaotic Union
Michael Warren Contemporary, 760 Santa Fe Drive
Through September 21
Opening Reception: Friday, August 19, 5 to 8 p.m.
Jeff Horton Artist Talk: Saturday, August 20, 10:30 a.m.
New shows for Elizabeth Ferrill and Jeff Horton opening at Michael Warren Contemporary share imagery from urban scenery. While Ferrill captures minute details in drawings, prints and copper scrolls, Horton renders the abstracted lines of the architectural framework under the skin of buildings. It’s a well-matched pairing, answering the question of what artists might look at while walking through a high-rise city environment.
Marina Kassianidou and Maia Ruth Lee ponder the relationships between language and markings at Lane Meyer Projects.
Courtesy of Lane Meyer Projects
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
Tuesday, August 16, through September 25
Opening Reception: Friday August 19, 8 p.m.
Colorado artists Marina Kassianidou and Maia Ruth Lee share a common theme exploring the relationships between language and mark-making from different points of view. For Kassianidou, the investigation is based on tracings from old school books — treasured heirlooms owned by her grandmother in Cyprus — while Lee inks out her own experience in a long banner adorned with the silhouettes of bandages.
Diana “Didi Rok” Contreras and Louie D. “Louiedeology,” Out of Line
ILA Gallery, 209 Kalamath Street, Unit 12
Friday, August 19, through September 5
Opening Reception: Friday, August 19, 6 to 10 p.m.
Florida-based artist/muralists Diana “Didi Rok” Contreras and Louie D. “Louiedeology” drop into Denver for a dual exhibition that digs deep into each artist’s practice. Contreras is known for her symbols of femininity — whimsical portraits of cartoonish divas — while Louie D. concentrates on what he calls “Molecular Constellations,” decorative, shadowed geometric forms created from one uninterrupted line. Adam “Dent” Martinez will perform at the reception; afterward, reservations and private viewings are available at ilaartgallery.com.
How will artists at Access Gallery depict you at the Portrait Slam?
Courtesy of Access Gallery
Access Gallery, 909 Santa Fe Drive
Portrait Slam: Friday, August 19, 6 to 8 p.m.
Free admission, suggested donation for portrait, $5
Swinging on the theme of Access Gallery’s ongoing portrait show Depicted, the gallery is throwing a Third Friday Portrait Slam manned by the talented young artists with disabilities who are served by Access. For a $5 donation to the gallery’s cause, one of them will dish you a quickie portrait from the heart. What will yours look like?
AmÈRICA, by Tonos Latinos
Aurora History Museum, 15051 East Alameda Parkway, Aurora
Through October 30
Opening Reception: Friday, August 19, 5:30 to 8 p.m.
The Aurora History Museum celebrates artists from North, Central and South America, courtesy of the local art collective Tonos Latinos, which has stitched together a multi-arts exhibition including fine art, music, poetry, dance, written word and crafts, some with roots in the Aurora community. In addition to the reception, a series of art workshops with Tonos Latinos are on tap for September 4 and 25, and October 9 and 23. Visit auroramuseum.org for information and coming additions to the event schedule.
Patricia Rucker, "Night Storm in Rendering Light."
Patricia Rucker
Charlie Walter, Renderings
Sync Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, August 18, through September 11
Opening Reception: Friday, August 19, 6 to 9 p.m.
Sync members Patricia Rucker and Charlie Walter share the gallery’s walls beginning this week: Rucker continues to fight back against her macular degeneration by turning out fabulous paintings that she pinpoints through bursts of light in her vision, and Charlie Walter offers abstract paintings in serene palettes.
Members of Denver's Birdseed Collective contributed this tire sculpture for the one-night outdoor exhibition Convoy.
Birdseed Collective
Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, 1600 Pierce Street, Lakewood
Saturday, August 20, 5 to 9 p.m.
Carl Baratta of High Beams, a nomadic Los Angeleno artist collective formed during the pandemic to create exhibition alternatives, and Denver’s Tobias Fike and Donald Fodness of the international collective Hyperlink, collaborated to bring Convoy, a one-day exhibition of multi-disciplinary art and performance by more than sixty artists from across the country to the RMCAD campus on Saturday evening. The four-hour road-trip destination combines art with a block party of national proportions, where artists and the art-adjacent can mingle while viewing temporary installations (including lots of projections). L.A. artist Andrew Murray, for instance, filmed site-specific works created using campsite findings during the drive to Colorado; Elizabeth Folk (aka The Art Dominatrix) performs; Denver’s Bridge Club hosts a 1970s-themed car wash; and Hyperlink promises a soundscape that comprises collective members describing their art practices.
Go back to school with more than forty artists with Denver ties at Friend of a Friend Gallery's summer group show. Image by Mario Zoots: “Red Blossoms," 2022, collage.
Image by Mario Zoots, courtesy of FoaF
Friend of a Friend Gallery, Evans School, 1115 Acoma Street, Suite #234
Saturday, August 20, through September 17
Friend of a Friend brings back more than forty friends/artists for an old-home-week group show that coincides with back-to-school rituals. It’s a dizzying list: You won’t be sorry you went.
Melinda Laz and Zachary Reece, Surface Tension
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Through September 11
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 20, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Valkarie pairs guest artists Melinda Laz, whose ceramic tiles, collages and other works on paper evoke home and family, time and memory, and Zachary Reece, known for his pattern-heavy digital drawing prints of the world and its creatures, human and otherwise, in plain black and white.
Beyond 2-D
Spark Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Through August 28
Artists Reception: Saturday, August 20, noon to 5 p.m.
Spark takes a break from its member schedule for this juried sculpture show selected and curated by Mark Friday. Works span several sculptural mediums. It’s a beauty for lovers of 3-D art.
Golden Fine Arts Festival
11th Street between Arapahoe and Maple streets, Golden
Saturday, August 20, and Sunday, August 21, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Free admission
The Golden Arts Festival goes into its 32nd year with a nice spread of works by 100 artists from Colorado and beyond in the charming streets of downtown Golden. Artists are selected through a competitive jury process by art professionals; the best of the best in each of nine media categories, including Best of Show and Best of Colorado, will be awarded cash prizes.
Manifest Dystopia: Call for Artists
Citywide AR Exhibition, launches October 15: Seeking 2-D, 3-D, paintings, sculpture, digital, prints, photos and more, as display-ready digital files
Submission Deadline: September 1
If all goes well, the guerrilla augmented-reality event Manifest Dystopia, set to launch on October 15, will likely be the biggest AR spectacle Denver’s ever seen, with AR imagery ready to pop out at locations all over town. Denver Digital Land Grab, the platform of founders Corrina Espinosa and David Hanan, goes by the motto “We are taking space. We are not asking permission"; if you’re an artist interested in joining the takeover, submit art by September 1. Find rules and a submission form here.
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected].
