Art Attack: Thirteen Ways to Celebrate First Friday in Denver

First Friday is here, and so is Month of Photography 2021. There are member exhibitions at co-ops, pop-ups and gallery experiments. And In case you’ve missed it, the long-running show Robert Rauschenberg: Reflections and Ruminations is set to close on March 20.

Here’s what’s happening in and around Denver this weekend:

Kevin O’Connell: New Photographs From the Fog Journal
Through March 27
Bi-Weekly Video Series: Robischon Gallery Artists in Review
Through March 31
Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee Street
At Robischon Gallery, they’re trying something different for MOP 2021: Although photographer Kevin O’Connell’s spooky and timeless Fog Journal series has been up in the gallery for more than a month, Robischon is also greeting MOP in its official month of March with a bi-weekly series of virtual programming focusing on the portfolios of a whole stable of gallery photographers, starting with O’Connell. Tune in on Wednesdays and Fridays through March on any of three online platforms: at the website, and on Facebook or Instagram.

Dallas Parkins, LEFT | FELT
Sharon Feder, STILL BEING | BEING STILL
Michael Warren Contemporary, 760 Santa Fe Drive
Through March 6
Photographer Dallas Parkins and painter Sharon Feder join forces at Michael Warren Contemporary for the gallery’s first week-long pop-up exhibition in 2021. In conjunction with MOP, Parkins offers his ongoing series of detritus left by the roadside: mangled road signs, a stripped bike body still chained to a pole, defunct phone booths, to name a few. Sharon Feder’s paintings of buildings devoid of human life, depicted under passing weather, with shadows moving across walls, offer counterpoint in the project space. All slots are already filled for a March 6 artist reception, but you can visit during regular hours, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., through Saturday.

Guest Artist: Elena Gunderson
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Belmar, Lakewood
Through March 28
Artist Reception: Friday, March 5, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Dive into Elena Gunderson’s wacky, Day-Glo-colored surreal world at Valkarie, where she’s guesting in March. Also on the docket at the gallery: Valkarie’s annual Chinese New Year invitational, Parad’ox, through the weekend; a turnover for the Valkarie member show, through May 2; and coming March 10, a MOP photography show by Dona Laurita.

Joyce Coco, Earth & Home
Sally Elliott, Dreams/Memories
Jane Dodge and Jayn Thomas, Threads
Spark Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Through March 28
Spark members Joyce Coco and Sally Elliott juxtapose dreamy domestic scenes in saturated colors and layered imagery of plant life and personal objects entwined, while Jane Dodge and Jayn Thomas show fiber works borrowing from the art of quilting and brightly colored paintings of geometric shapes in space in the North Gallery.

Julie Lizak, Chlorapathy
Robert Platz Originals & RPO Framing, 1588 South Pearl Street
Friday March 5, 6 to 9 p.m.
Photographer Julie Lizak presents refreshing abstracted blow-ups of textures and colors from the natural world for First Friday on South Pearl Street. Lizak’s partner, Robert Platz, an artist and framer who owns the RPO venue, usually has work on the walls, as well.

CU Denver Sculpture Club, Con·tin·gen·cy
Ariella Asher, Pleather
Casel Castaneda in the Treasure Chest
Pirate Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
March 5 through 21
Opening Reception: Friday, March 5, 6 to 10 p.m.
Pirate’s got a big mixed bag for March, beginning with the CU Denver Sculpture Club, a collective gallery member presenting work by Alicia Brown, Sofia Fernandez-Garcia, Stephanie Jordan, Erin Kaden, Trevor Leach and Chelsea Minter-Brindley in a show juried by Arvada Center gallery exhibition manager Emily Grace King. The club will also be fundraising by selling $10 sand-carving tiles to be cast in iron (carved tiles must be returned to Pirate by March 14) and $15 Sculpture Club T-shirts. In addition, Pirate member Ariella Asher is showing digital collage works overlaid with mosaic-like textures, and Casel Castaneda joins in with sweet found-object sculptures in the Treasure Chest.

Feel Me
Bleue Tile Gallery, 3940 South Broadway, Englewood
March 5 through April 2
Opening Reception: Friday, March 5, 6 to 9 p.m.
RSVP online in advance of opening and gallery visits
Curator Lee LaBier, an artist working in photo-based media, often incorporating self-portraits forming a diary of personal change, pulled together six photographers from across the country to visually emote the rush of feelings people have experienced during a year of social distancing. The resulting show, Feel Me, shares LaBier’s own take as a memoirist, but through the differing eyes of six COVID sojourners.

Seen: Perspectives Through Photography
Edge Gallery, Art Hub, 6851 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
March 5 through 21
Edge Gallery celebrates MOP with an open call to community photographers. Expect to be surprised at the breadth of photographic expression being produced by your neighbors and other hobbyists like you.

Brett Fox, Time, Space & Face
Devvon Simpson, Ethan Jantzer and Justin Beard, Intimate Method
Michael Dowling & Brett Matarazzo, Works in Progress
BRDG Gallery, 1553 Platte Street
March 5 through March 28
Opening Reception: Friday and Saturday, March 5 and 6, 5 to 10 p.m. No registration required.
Reception for Works in Progress collaboration, Friday, March 26, 5 to 10 p.m.
Artists Michael Dowling and Brett Matarazzo have embarked on a six-month art adventure called the BRDG Project, a temporary three-gallery space down in the Platte River Valley, in the Zang Building. They’ll launch the venue with two photo-related MOP shows and their own collaborative affair that should be called Works in Process instead of Works in Progress, offering a view of the studio process, with the completed works put on display at a March 26 closing reception.

Robert Davis Garner, Cardboard Brothel and New Works
Fred Becker, Paintings That Paint Themselves
Core New Art Space, Art Hub, 6851 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
March 5 through March 21
Opening Reception: Friday, March 5, 6 to 9 p.m.
Core members Robert Davis Garner and Fred Voigt Becker share the stage at the co-op with, respectively, a body of large, dark paintings inspired by the plight of the homeless and more cheerful abstract-expressionist works.

Aperture+Antiques: Diane Allison
Eron Johnson Antiques, 377 South Lipan Street, Unit B
Through March 31
Artist Open House: Saturday, March 6, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Photographer Diane Allison dresses up her gorgeous shots of clouds and sunsets in fancy frames among the timeless antiques in Eron Johnson’s warehouse of classical furnishings and statues for a lush MOP show that celebrates nature’s colors.

Beneath the Surface: A Study of Self by Sarah Darlene Palmeri
S*Park Pop-up, 2570 Lawrence Street
March 6 through April 25
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 6, 6 to 9 p.m., RSVP in advance for timed-entry slot
New RedLine resident artist Sarah Darlene Palmeri pops up in the art center’s S*Park space with an introduction to her multimedia work in abstract painting, animation and sound, stirred up by the idea of self-reflection through meditation.

Jorge Elbrecht
LMP PDA, Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
March 8 through March 21
Part-time Denverite Jorge Elbrecht developed a polymathic practice as a composer, performer and visual artist, but was driven into darker themes in his work by stress levels so overwhelming that he developed a rapid aging disorder and a genetic age of 76, more than thirty years beyond his age in years. The subject of interpretive studies by hired artists, Elbrecht will be represented in the window gallery at Lane Meyer Projects by these attempts to understand his inner visions, alongside his own work. Elbrecht will donate half of all sales to the Environmental Defense Fund.

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