You might have guessed there’s more — lots more — listed below, and it’s all exciting.
Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas From the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Through January 12
Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas at the Denver Art Museum unveils the later-life triumphs of a pioneering Black woman artist who returned to painting after 35 years as a junior high teacher. Thomas became a cornerstone of the Black artist community in Washington, D.C., during the ’40s, but it was not until she retired in 1960 that she began creating the abstract paintings she’s remembered for. Rendered on canvas in contrasting fields of brightly colored shards in patterns inspired by natural phenomena and music, her late work dazzles the senses. As a companion to the exhibition, the museum is offering three fall courses exploring Thomas’s work that will unfold monthly from September to November; registration is $25 per session (students with ID free), with live or online options. Learn more and register here.
CHAC Gallery, Día de los Muertos Art Show
Armory Performing Arts Center, 300 Strong Street, Brighton
Through November 5
Artist Reception: Saturday, October 26, 4 to 9 p.m.
CHAC members ante up Día de los Muertos art annually at the Armory Performing Arts Center for Brighton’s Hispanic community. But while the show opens this week, the jackpot doesn’t come until October 26, when the center hosts an all-ages reception and party, with Aztec dancers, face painting, sugar skull decorating, vendor booths, food trucks and live music.
Ninth Digerati Experimental Media Festival: Decode Recode
Thursday, September 12, through September 22
In its ninth year, the Digerati Experimental Media Festival is going low-key and right to the point over ten days of intimate screenings, conversations and collabs with Denver Startup Week and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. On Sunday, September 15, there will be a dip into performance and shop talk with Debora and Jason Bernagozzi of Signal Culture, a Colorado-based residency for experimental media artists. This is the first in a series of half-hour documentaries that examine the uncharted territory where performance and tech are changing the world. And in between it is the meat: lots and lots of mind-blowing film and video, hybrid animations, and multi-disciplinary visuals with music. Find a complete schedule and register here.
Faculty Exhibition, Myhren Gallery
Thursday, September 12, through November 24
Ex-Faculty Exhibition, Davis Gallery
Thursday, September 12, through October 11
2121 East Asbury Avenue, DU Campus
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 12, 5 to 8 p.m.
The University of Denver’s Myhren and Davis galleries start off the school year with a pair of art faculty showcases: one for those currently working, and the other for former faculty making waves outside of DU classrooms. What makes all of them good teachers? Imagination, familiarity with contemporary trends, mastery of techniques and mediums and the ability to nurture students, as well as their own work.
MJ Lindo-Lawyer's mural at 30th and Pearl Street in Boulder from a past Street Wise Mural Festival.
Photo: Peter Kowalchuk
Street Wise Festival HQ: 2510 47th Street, Unit G, Boulder
Roots Music Project (RMP and RMP B-Side): 4747 Pearl Street, Suite V3A, Boulder
The Spark: 4847 Pearl Street B4, Boulder
Dairy Arts Center: 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder
Friday, September 13, through Sunday, September 15
The Street Wise Mural Festival is back for its sixth year, inviting fans to enjoy its big enthusiasm and small-town flavor in the streets of Boulder. The hot spots are clustered around four locations (see above), where Street Wise will host free art and skate-deck exhibitions, mural tours, outdoor entertainment and an Art + Activism Market, as well as ticketed events, including a workshop on ledger painting with Indigenous artist Bruce Cook, and a panel on protecting beaver habitats with artist Lindee Zimmer and members of the Boulder Watershed Collective. Find a map of mural sites, the fest schedule and registration links here.
Homelands: Reconnection
Sacred Space Gallery, Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder
Friday, September 13, through November 3
Opening Reception: Friday, September 13, 5 to 8 p.m.
In concert with Street Wise, the Dairy will host an opening in its Sacred Space Gallery, which is designated as a place for self-expression among Indigenous communities. Homelands: Reconnection pays tribute to members of the Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute tribes of Colorado — whose ancestors lived on land now occupied by the city of Boulder — with art by Colorado-based Native artists.
Rachael Delaney, “She Can Be Prickly,” thread, gold-plated sewing needles, plexiglass.
Rachael Delaney
BRDG Project, 3300 Tejon Street
Friday, September 13, through October 6
Opening Reception: Friday, September 13, 6 to 10 p.m.
The community answered, and the resulting show for the BRDG Project’s first-ever call for entries will be unveiled this weekend, with 150 works by fifty local artists. The exhibition, Seed, has been mounted on the concept that, as self-help author James Clear has said, “All big things come from small beginnings” — as expressed by art. Here’s a show you’ll leave with that feel-good glow.
Nexus
Walker Fine Art, 300 West 11th Avenue, Unit A
Friday, September 13, through November 2
Opening Reception: Friday, September 13, 5 to 8 p.m.
A fine lineup of six artists share art in the new exhibition Nexus, opening this weekend at Walker Fine Art, headed up by Martha Russo, a new and important addition to WFA’s gallery stable. The artist is known for immersive mixed-media installations of shapes steeped in nature and executed in clay and porcelain, found detritus, wood, paint, manmade materials and whatever fits. Also in the gallery, find Melanie Walker’s photo-based works, often imprinted on diaphanous fabric or paper, falling from the ceiling in yardage or large discs and casting shadows in the light. Look for Sabin Aell’s mixed-media wall installations, pieced together with imprinted plexiglass shapes that fly across the expanse in free contours and, in this show, industrial materials and leather. Also included are abstract forms derived from nature by Rob Mellor and Heather Patterson, and spherical collages gone wild in a primordial soup of random life forms by Angela Piehl.
99 Pieces of Art
Access Gallery, 909 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, September 13, 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Access Gallery’s popular fundraising event, 99 Pieces of Art, is back in session on Friday the 13th, but there’s nothing spooky about it: As always, the focus is on 99 ten-inch-square donated artworks, most by local artists, including the young adults with disabilities who benefit from Access’s art and job training programs. All the artworks are for sale for $99 each at the event, as long as they last, but general admission is deliberately inexpensive at $12.50 and includes food and drink. Access has also added a membership option this year for $99 that comes with year-round perks. Reserve tickets at Eventbrite.
Cholas y Vatos
Art Contained Del Sol, 3058 West 55th Avenue
Friday, September 13, through October 26
Opening Reception: Friday, September 13, 6 to 9 p.m.
Art Contained Del Sol, a backyard shipping-container gallery in northwest Denver, pays homage to the proud people of the barrio, who outrun stereotypes and think for themselves as they maneuver their way through life.
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected].
