303 Magazine

10 ARTISTS NOT TO MISS AT NEW EXHIBITION FEATURING OVER 100 CREATIVE COLORADANS

Cori Anderson I  January 23rd, 2019

“For the next two months, The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities is displaying an enormous group exhibition of all Colorado-based artists. But this exhibition is more than just a viewing, it’s a juried show. Each artist contributed one or two pieces and the only theme is that they all practice within the state. Called Art of the State, the exhibition showcases the variety, depth and expertise of local artists. Although there are more than 100 artists on display until March 31, we’ve put together a list of 10 not to miss when you make a visit.….

Industrial geometry is what Denver-based artist Jodie Roth Cooper creates. Using welding techniques and steel, the artist makes large sculptures — both free standing and hanging from walls or ceilings — that act as both illusion and obstacle. Though his materials are hard and heavy, some of his design work is as precise as lace, fooling the viewer into thinking of his work as fragile. His piece in the show — Gleaming — draws the eye from the sturdy, straight-lined cube to the triangulated design in the middle, giving it a hint of growth or movement.”

The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, Art of the State 2019 Exhibition, January 17th-March 31st

Review: Gildar and Space Galleries Put the Focus on Figures

Michael Paglia  I  January 23rd, 2019  I  7:29AM

“While depiction of the human figure is as old as art itself, it’s also credible subject matter for contemporary artists, as seen in two current exhibits.…

A different approach to contemporary figural painting is displayed in Morphogenesis, the Space show with Denver’s William Stoehrand Julia Sanders, an artist who now lives in Philadelphia. The two artists are both coming out of classic realist traditions that are almost post-impressionist in character. But each crosses the old-fashioned approach with some very expressionist handling of the pigments and the forms, which is more typically associated with abstraction than it is with representational painting.

Stoehr, who has exhibited his work internationally, is self-taught as an artist; he had a career as an engineer before retiring and devoting himself full-time to painting starting in 2004. He’s written that Willem de Kooning was a childhood influence, and the abstract master’s combo of expressionist brushwork and depictions of women is seen in Stoehr’s work.

All of the Stoehrs at Space are straight-on views of a woman’s face, rendered way over life-sized (though small by the artist’s standards) and standing out against a white ground; the women appear to be African-American, given their features and the use of browns and blacks. In the striking “No More Words 8,” a woman covers her mouth with her hands, the nails painted red, the only bright color the artist uses. Stoehr focuses on the psychological state of the sitters; anxiety and fear, along with hope, are among the moods they broadcast.

Filling the enormous main gallery is a selection of painterly figure studies, all of them female nudes, by Sanders. The artist grew up in the Denver area, left for the West Coast to attend the California College of the Arts, then moved to the East Coast to complete her BFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. While at the PAFA, she studied chiaroscuro and the depiction of the figure. This is her second outing at Space; she exhibited at the gallery’s old location when she was just sixteen.

Much more than Stoehr’s work, Sanders’s style suggests a kind of historicism; I thought especially about the Ash Can painters of the early twentieth century. She sets her sketchy renditions of nudes in the center of her pictures and envelops them in wide swaths of thick paint. Sanders’s skill in figure studies is remarkable; she uses an economy of strokes to suggest the nudes, blurry figures done in pinks and corals. (Though Stoehr cited de Kooning as an influence, these Sanders paintings seem more closely related to his style.)

Sanders’s paintings in this show, which are very closely interrelated, vary in size from miniatures — displayed in two handsome, wraparound installations — to easel-sized panels, and a couple of large-format paintings. They all have a lyrical subtlety, and probably because of the appeal of her subject, the female nude, they are much more viewer-friendly than Stoehr’s giant psychological portraits.

No matter their style, all three artists in these two shows prove that the figure as an artistic subject is more relevant than ever

Morphogenesis, through February 16, Space Gallery, 400 Santa Fe Drive, 303-993-3321.

Review: Color Brightens New Shows 

Michael Paglia  I  July 18th, 2018  I  5:59AM

“…Color and form are also the keystones of The Future Is Liquid, a gorgeous group show at Space Gallery with nary a mountain or anything else recognizable, not even if you squint.

The show starts off with large abstractions by Michael Hedges, with thick bars of paint applied in single strokes by a wide brush loaded with some kind of bright color. Hedges, a Chicago artist, has written that his process involves “great bursts of energy,” and you can see that quality in the paintings, which include a dizzying number of individual marks that have been piled on top of one another, filling the canvas to all four edges. All of the Hedges pieces resonate closely with one another and are intimately interrelated in both their shared palette and their similar composition. This consistency can be partly explained by the fact that Hedges normally works on ten or more paintings at once, presumably applying one color to all the canvases, then another color to all of them, and on and on. No matter how he makes them, though, the results are gorgeous.

Space is so roomy that even though Hedges is given only the entry galleries, his many paintings in The Future Is Liquid would constitute a full-blown solo just about anywhere else in town. Monroe Hodder’s many paintings and works on paper could serve as another solo — but it would be the size of a museum show. Hodder maintained a home and studio in Steamboat Springs for many years and is well known in Denver, where she’s shown her work around town. Although she relocated to New York a few years ago, she’s maintained a local presence through exhibits such as this. Ten years ago, a signature Hodder would have been a stack of horizontal bars that were thickly and heavily painted and then overpainted. A few years ago, she broke with this strict formality and began exploring other directions. Her latest turn is using spattered screens of color floating over heavily worked and multi-colored fields, and the paintings are dazzling. In addition to these large pieces, she’s contributed a grid of 49 works on paper with a separate, single painterly gesture on each that lay out the vocabulary of marks that she’s used on the paintings.

Scattered throughout the galleries are simple linear sculptures by Oregon’s Miguel Edwards. The three-dimensional scribbles are made of welded steel bars, but despite this heavy material, the resulting works have a lightness dominated by open space within the sculptures. Each has been finished in a striking monochrome color such as red, orange or blue. Sort of a cross between a geometric aesthetic and an expressionist one, the Edwards sculptures work beautifully with the Hedges and Hodder paintings. 

In the heat of July, these colorful exhibits are the aesthetic equivalents of summer carnivals for the eye.

The Future Is Liquid, through August 4, Space Gallery, 400 Santa Fe Drive, 303-993-3321.

Check out this month’s Denver Westword article on the Top ‘100 Colorado Creatives’ which features two Space Gallery artists: Taiko Chandler & Susan Oehme. Click on the links below to read the full articles on these amazing creatives. Their work is currently on view in our exhibition ‘INFORMED – Print as an Influence’ which runs through April 7th, stop by the gallery and see their work in person!

Abstract gallery expanding Santa Fe Art District footprint
By Kate Tracy April 18, 2018
https://businessden.com/

A Scottish artist is bringing abstract art to a concrete-and-brick warehouse in the Santa Fe Art District.

Michael Burnett, owner of the Space Gallery at 400 Sante Fe Drive, has purchased a 4,300-square-foot building at 95 S. Cherokee St. to grow his gallery featuring abstract artists.

“When I moved here originally from Scotland, I just loved the transformation of spaces in general and fixing things up, creating something that’s new and your own,” Burnett said. “It’s partly that, and partly an opportunity to give the artists that we currently represent a space to show year-round.”

The Space Gallery has 60 artists, but only room to rotate through about 20 artists exhibiting in its current 8,000-square-foot space.

“We just want to be able to keep them in the spotlight all the time,” Burnett said. “If they’re not showing in our current exhibit, it’s just nice to be able to have a place where we can represent their work.”

Burnett purchased the Cherokee Street property for $1 million in February, with a $999,000 SBA loan. He’s adding a rooftop deck.

“We wanted to expose all the beautiful original character of the building,” he said. “We’re not doing a whole lot to it, just getting back to the meat of the building.”

Burnett, 42, grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, and studied painting and drawing at the Edinburgh College of Art. He came to Colorado for skiing in 1999, then met his wife and moved in 2001, the same year he opened his first gallery at 2026 Larimer St. in LoDo.

“When I opened the gallery, it was really a place to show my own work and a studio,” Burnett said. “Over time, people would come in and asked to show their work. It grew from there.”

Burnett collects half the sale price of art sold at the Space Gallery. The gallery also functions as an event space for weddings, fundraisers and other gatherings. Burnett did not disclose revenue from 2017, but said the business is profitable. The Space Gallery employs two people currently, but he said he plans to hire more once the new gallery opens.

Check out this great write-up about our exhibition Nature’s line in Westword!

“Nature’s Line, the lyrical group show now at Space Gallery, is a worthy followup to the impressive Pattern, which was presented there earlier this summer. In Pattern, the theme was repeated imagery, as the title suggests. This time, the subject is the organic line, which is also conveyed in the title.

Both shows were organized by gallery director Michael Burnett, who brought together abstract artists — mostly painters — from inside and outside Colorado. And it’s important to point out that the artists in the current show aren’t abstracting flowers, plants or animals. Rather, they are using free-flowing lines and rounded shapes, which hint at natural things but do not ape them. Each artist has been given a separate section, so that each has a sort of mini-solo within the group.”

Read the whole write-up!

Check out this great write-up about our art work in Westword!

Check out this great write-up about our new exhibition in Westword!

“It used to be that the art world in Denver took a breather in August, to mark the close of one season and allow galleries to gear up for the next one, which started after Labor Day — but that’s clearly not the case anymore. This month has seen a raft of great shows that have opened just as the schedule was supposed to be winding down. This week, I caught up with a quartet of exhibits that are linked by a shared interest among the participating artists in conveying forms and colors with minimal narrative or conceptual content.”

Read the whole write-up!

Check out this great write-up about our new Space in Westword!

“Though Denver’s art world can trace its roots back to the late nineteenth century — the Denver Art Museum, for example, was founded in 1893 — it has only reached critical mass since the dawn of the 21st. The most obvious evidence of this was the construction of the DAM’s Hamilton Building and of MCA Denver’s new home in the mid-2000s; both were momentous events that raised the city’s art profile nationally and internationally.”

Read the whole write-up!