All the Best Art Shows to See This Weekend in Denver

This week in galleries, the natural world will be checking in with florals at Nick Ryan Gallery. See dogs and ponies at the GOCA Project Space at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and bronze insects (in a farewell show by Yoshitomo Saito) and splendid plants at William Havu Gallery. Beyond that, Julie Puma explores nostalgia and human feelings at Leon Gallery, James Tapscott drops a moongate of mist in Green Mountain Falls, and the A.I.-in-art discussion continues at Niza Knoll Gallery.

That should keep art lovers busy.

Claire McConaughy: Wildflower Halo
Lisa Rock: In Bloom
Nick Ryan Gallery, 1221 Pennsylvania Avenue, Boulder
Thursday, June 27, through August 10
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 27, 5 to 8 p.m.
Nick Ryan Gallery has a fresh botanical spin from painters Claire McConaughy and Lisa Rock. McConaughy’s layered landscapes pair floral imagery with the dynamism of modern brushstrokes expressing movement, memory and the passage of time, while Rock goes with full-on flowery canvases of flashy blooms and contrasting textures, colors, shadows and shapes, where blossoms pop out of the undergrowth. In other words, it’s a perfect summer show.

Paul Kenneth, Dog & Pony
GOCA Project Space, Ent Center for the Arts, 5225 North Nevada Avenue, Colorado Springs
Thursday, June 27, through July 20
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 27, 5 to 7 p.m. (artist talk at 6 p.m.)
Paul Kenneth’s work, a mixture of drawings, paintings, prints and sculpture, all begins with an active hand that not only suggests movement but also throws creatures — in this case, multiple horses or dogs — that interlock like puzzle pieces, playfully overspilling with whimsy and humor on a background with no perspective. Kenneth’s high-octane doodling brings to mind a boy lying on his stomach on the floor to draw, with a head full of wild ideas — but his keen draftsmanship uplifts the work with a visual smile.

Yoshitomo Saito, Every Flying Insect Has a Fairy Spirit
Heidi Jung
William Havu Gallery, 1040 Cherokee Street
Friday, June 28, through August 17
Opening Reception: Friday, June 28, 5-8 p.m.
Artist Talk: Saturday, June 29, noon
Two artists obsessed with natural forms — bronze sculptor Yoshitomo Saito and Heidi Jung, who draws plants in inks, charcoal and pastel on Mylar — share space at the William Havu Gallery. The big news: It’s Saito’s final show at the gallery. Because of injuries sustained after a fall from a ladder in 2021, Saito is giving up the rigorous practice of casting bronze, hoping to devise more manageable new forms of expression. His exhibition, Every Flying Insect Has a Fairy Spirit, hints at where things might go. And one can’t underestimate the luscious, translucent beauty of Jung’s work, which elicits the aura of a mesmerizing jungle where Saito’s spritely bronze insects might fly.

Julie Puma, Field Day
Leon Gallery, 1112 East 17th Avenue
Friday, June 28, through August 3
Opening Reception: Friday, June 28, 6 to 10 p.m.
Leon fetes painter Julie Puma with a display of her ongoing autobiographical visual diary, fraught with feelings and human connections. For Field Day, Puma goes back in time, resurrecting memories of childhood and personal losses through the stories told subjectively by her mental pictures of old photographs, mementos and reminiscences. She ties together oil paintings and miniature installations of sculpture and mixed media.

Darrell Anderson, Risk & Change, through August 4
FEMA Climate Resiliency, Photography and Storytelling Exhibition, through July 28
RedLine Contemporary Art Center, 2350 Arapahoe Street
Opening Reception: Friday, June 28, 6 to 9 p.m.
Two shows debut this weekend at RedLine — one by artist and community leader Darrell Anderson (curated by former RedLine executive director of education J.C. Futrell, who considers Anderson his life mentor), and the other a group showcase for the FEMA Climate Resiliency Project, focused on positive hazard mitigation demonstrating community resilience in the face of climate change. Both fit into RedLine’s 2024 exhibition theme of “Stories_UnderScored,” whether by celebrating the life journey of an artist or showing how communities can fight back when nature goes awry.

A.I. Love You
Niza Knoll Gallery, 915 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, June 28, through August 11
Opening Reception: Sunday, June 30, 1 to 4 p.m.
A.I. Artist Talk: Sunday, July 14, 1 p.m.
A.I. Demo: Saturday, July 27, 1 p.m.
It’s a love-it-or-leave-it situation when it comes to using A.I. as an artist medium, but this new juried show at Niza Knoll Gallery is actually all about love — the emotion — but might also touch on love for the brave new illustration tool and learning to use it in positive and legal ways. If nothing else, it might encourage folks on both sides of the bridge to talk about A.I. instead of taunting one another about it. Juror Rick Dallago, a representational artist, admits to being a convert and came up with the theme; he and Knoll hope that people will come have a look with open minds.

Annual Members’ Show
Colorado Photographic Arts Center, 1200 Lincoln Street
Friday, June 28, through August 10
Opening Reception and Awards Ceremony: Saturday, June 29, 5 to 8 p.m., free
CPAC’s Members’ Show — the remarkable 61st edition — offers challenging work by 53 CPAC members, juried in by New York Times photo editor Brent Lewis. In all, 216 photographers submitted more than a thousand images for Lewis to preview. The work of 34 artists will be hung for the show, while nineteen others will have “special mention” works printed in the exhibition catalogue ($20 from Blurb) and included in a television slideshow in the gallery. Go and see what’s competitive in modern photography.

Alina Orav, Blood Ties
Dateline Gallery, 3004 Larimer Street
Saturday, June 29, through July 31
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 29, 6 to 11 p.m.
Estonian artist Alina Orav’s Blood Ties, a selection of paintings and sculpture and her first solo show in the United States, opens at Dateline. Inspired by her own childbirth experience, the paintings are rendered in a raw and explicit timeline, with other works, including a surrounding installation of hand-sculpted monumental trees and intimate body parts composed of recycled paper echoing the birth stages. True to the authentic, the whole of it is beautiful, terrifying, emotional and joyful in stages, using information Orav gathered through personal experience as well as interviews and research conducted with other women.

Lisa Lee Adams and Robert Bell, Portals: Art, Space, Time
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Through July 21
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 29, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Valkarie pairs mixed-media artist Lisa Lee Adams, whose organic imagery seems to reference life rising out of the cauldron of primordial soup, and Robert Bell, known for his nude images of buxom babes.

Green Box Arts Festival: James Tapscott, Arc ZERO: Nimbus Unveiling
Green Box Farm Stand, 6990 Lake Street, Green Mountain Falls
Unveiling: Monday, July 1, noon to 1 p.m.
ArtDesk Conversation: Tuesday, July 2, noon, Church in the Wildwood, 10585 Ute Pass Avenue, Green Mountain Falls; free, RSVP here.
The two-week Green Box Arts Festival kicks off on July 1 with the unveiling of three new additions to its growing collection of public artworks both temporary and permanent. This year’s new crowd-pleaser is Arc ZERO: Nimbus, a splendid temporary work by Australian installation artist James Tapscott placed, in its tenth iteration, near Gazebo Lake in the mountain town of Green Mountain Falls. The work utilizes lake water to create a diaphanous round mist portal that lights up into a ring of fire after dark. Also debuting on the same day are temporary installations by Kristina Barker and Thu Kim Vu. Make a day of it and and sign up in advance for a visit to James Turrell’s Green Mountain Falls Skyspace.

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