The Best Art Openings, Shows, Sales and Events This Weekend

It’s a cool weekend for art, with experimental work going down in secret spaces, a convergence of co-op openings in Lakewood, masterful abstract painters on view at Space Gallery and, in its thirtieth year, the time-honored Summer Art Market at the Art Students League of Denver, once again welcoming people from all over Denver to drop in and buy art.

Here's how to paint the town this weekend:
Andrea Gordon, Obscured Space
The Storeroom, 1700 Vine Street
Through October 31
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 14, 7 to 9 p.m.
Andrea Gordon’s installation Obscured Space will remain on view through Halloween, and it’s a treat. From the sidewalk, the picture window of the Storeroom comes to life in electric Yellow Submarine hues, creeping and crawling in patterns around the walls. Gordon calls it a “multi-dimensional painting” in which all of its diverging shapes and colors somehow connect in singularity. Drop by and see what you think.
John Lake: Squinting Grief
BMoCA at Macky Auditorium Gallery, 1595 Pleasant Street, #285ucb, Boulder
Thursday, August 24, through November 12
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 24, 6 to 8 p.m.; artist talk, 7 p.m.
John Lake packages deeply personal imagery into the exhibition Squinting Grief, a series of photographs taken after attending a family reunion and traveling through New York, Wisconsin and Rockford, Illinois, where his father was born. Shot using a variety of analog film mediums with family bonds in mind, the photos are screened through an ongoing conversation about clan psychology and processing difficult memories. The results are haunting and dreamy.

Eyes and Ears - Experimental/Noise/Ambient - Audio & Visual Performances
No Vacancy, IMAC Building, 2550 Larimer Street
Friday, August 25, 7:30 to 11:30 p.m.
The No Vacancy artist residency space in RiNo is still standing, and creative people continue to find ways to use it before the vacant building is torn down. If you like out-of-the-ordinary art experiences, join sound and media artists Paulus van Horne, David Fodel (with Matt Pass), Adán De La Garza, Ben Coleman and Phillip David Stearns for an evening of performances; find information and tickets, $10, at Eventbrite.
Jeff Wenzel, Monroe Hodder and Joshua Enck
Space Gallery, 400 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, August 25, through September 30
Opening Reception: Friday, August 25, 6 to 8 p.m.
Space pairs abstract painters Jeff Wenzel and Monroe Hodder with sculptor Joshua Enck for a show that elevates works that criss-cross between elegant control of composition and medium and the art of letting go. Wenzel and Hodder both engage in layering canvases — Wenzel with an unstudied over-marking of the background in black and Hodder doing the same in wild contrasting scribbles or painterly blocks resembling chalk eraser marks spread akimbo — but come to different conclusions. Enck also exercises a freedom of expression in harmony with mastery of his materials, giving life to the inanimate. All in all, the arc of the show promises to be well matched.
Suzanne Savoy, Disco Possum
Eli West, All My Friends Are Trolls
Kelly Clements in Treasure Chest
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, August 25, through September 10
Opening Reception: Friday, August 25, 6 to 10 p.m.
At Pirate, one of several Lakewood galleries opening shows simultaneously on Friday, Suzanne Savoy presents a new series of nature-based and skeletal paintings on glass, enhanced with textural mediums and materials. Fellow Pirateer Eli West dresses up those sexless troll dolls in sparkly abandon for a modern take on play.
Christy Lynne Seving, You Are Here
Josh Davy, Lost Along the Way
Next Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, August 25, through September 10
Opening Reception: Friday, August 25, 5 to 10 p.m.
Next opens a poignant pair of solos by married couple Christy Lynne Seving and “artner in crime” Josh Davy, who says Lost Along the Way will be his last show at the gallery. It also marks a rare moment when their solo shows at Next coincide. Davy has experimented with sculptural clay art depicting uninhabited buildings in reaction to the redevelopment that ultimately pushed out Next and other galleries on Navajo Street, but with Lost Along the Way, he touches on more personal territory. This time, the buildings are primarily churches, representative of the evangelical Christian faith he was born into and later left; they are also built of wood instead of clay. Seving mused on dreamier topics while looking down on Earth from the window seat of an airplane and painted abstractly, using encaustic, oils, ink and cold wax. She’s also dabbling in blocky sculptures with textured surfaces.
Earl Chuvarsky, Ghosts of Old Denver Part III
Core Members’ Show
Nobody Special in the Annex
Core Art Space, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, August 25, through September 10
Opening Reception: Friday, September 1, 5 to 10 p.m.
Core’s Earl Chuvarsky revisits the historical Colorado stories that spark the portraits, characters and symbolism of his Ghosts of Old Denver series, while Core members tag-team a group member show.
Mark Brasuell: Unterschwellig
Katherine Johnson: Ungrounded
Eric Havelock-Bailie, photographs
Edge Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, August 25, through September 10
Opening Reception: Friday, August 25, 6 to 9 p.m.
At Edge, Mark Brasuell mines the subliminal in curvy black-and-white drawings shot with strings of color for Unterschwellig; Katherine Johnson’s Ungrounded focuses on a difficult period when she had no time to paint, what she learned from the changes, and how it’s given her new life strategies; and Eric Havelock-Bailie pulls out older Polaroids that chronicle travels and observations from about twenty years ago.
Summer Art Market
Art Students League of Denver, 200 Grant Street
Saturday, August 26, and Sunday, August 27, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
$5 fee here (free for children twelve and under)
Thirty years in, the Art Students League of Denver’s Summer Art Market has become a neighborhood tradition because it’s not like any other art market you’ve been to. Why? It’s laid-back, with all Colorado-made art, and everyone is an equal: teachers, students, local artists and art lovers alike. The prices are fair, and the art is good. And on the side, there’s beer, food by Little Pub and ice cream by Sweet Action when you’re ready to take a load off, find a patch of shade and get out your wallet.
Art in the Park
O'Brien Park, 10795 Victorian Drive, Parker
Saturday, August 26, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, August 27, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Free
The Parker Artists Guild hosts its annual juried Art in the Park this weekend by the gazebo in O’Brien Park, with original artworks in three broad categories: fine art, craft and photography. The event, a Parker summer tradition, will include food trucks and live music along with art tents where you can browse. Entry is free; learn more here.

Tales in Textiles and Polished Closing Reception, Tour and Discussion
McNichols Building, 144 West Colfax Avenue
Saturday, August 26, 1 to 2 p.m.; Fabric Remnant Sale follows from 2 to 4 p.m.
Free, RSVP at Eventbrite
Two summer shows at the McNichols Building —Tales in Textiles: Mid-Century Style and Polished: The “Candy Coated” Works of Sonny Valdez — close this weekend, but not before Denver Arts & Venues and McNichols curator Shana Shelby hosts a walk-through and discussion of the shows on Saturday afternoon, followed by a reception with refreshments and a sale of selvage and fabric remnants from the textile show.
Penney Bidwell and Mike Keene: The Nature of Clay
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Through September 17
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 26, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Clay artists Penney Bidwell and Mike Keene make a good match-up for this all-ceramic show at Valkarie Gallery. Both work on different paths in distinctive styles to create beautiful, funny and charming objects that make lovely gifts or decorations for the home. Bidwell is known for her whimsical clay busts and strange creatures, while Keene carves heavily patterned designs into the surfaces of wall hangings, sculptures and vessels, some of which he also photographs and sells as prints.

Gallery Sale
Dateline, 3004 Larimer Street
Saturday, August 26, 5 to 9 p.m., and Sunday, August 27, noon to 9 p.m.
Dateline’s Leftovers art and moving sales (everything must go!) come to a close this weekend; drop by Saturday and/or Sunday. But is this the end? Nope.

Word / Sound / Image
Evans School, 1115 Acoma Street (use East 11th Avenue entrance)
Saturday, August 26, 7 to 9 p.m.
Denver Digerati’s Sharifa Lafon and Evans School-mate Joshua Ware will host a new mixed-media evening with poet Cass Eddington, performance artist Tobias Fike, sound artist Paulus van Horne and experimental videographer Kelly Sears. It’s more fun living on the edge.

Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected].