Past Exhibitions

Artist in the BFA exhibition

Show One May 2-7, 2008
Justin Bock, Kim Bone, Jacob Custer, Valerie R. Dillon, Sandra Elkind, Javier Flores, Melanie Flores, Jacqueline A. Harlow, Dana Kilcoyne, Hillary Lardie, Joel Murray, Anne Nimetz, Jordan Ourada, Thomas W. Robertson, Mike Rogers, Rhiannon Royse, Charlene Spreng, Skyler McGee, Lindsey Trout, Scott Zbryk..

Show Two May 9-15, 2008
Jessica Carey, Christine Curry, Kimberly Fletcher, David Fodel, Melanie Gerhardt, Ashley Gibson, Megan Harrison, Liz Hoffman, Justin Maes, Jaena Michali, Lola Montejo-Crowley, Joshua David Pass, Carmen C. Penny, Laura Politzki, Todd J. Robinson, Alyson Savageau, Taralyn Shepherd, Brandi Steinbach, Melanie Warner.

Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>

still
March 6 – April 30, 2008

Artist Talk with Nigel Poor:
March 13, 6:30 pm

Opening Reception:
March 13, 7-9pm

Metro State Center for Visual Art presents still
featuring the photography and film of Slater Bradley, Sally Mann and Nigel Poor. The exhibition was curated by MSCD Art Department Chair Greg Watts and Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography Cinthea Fiss.

Throughout the history of photography the issue of mortality has been a very present spectre in both photographic theories and practices. Early daguerreotypes of American soldiers about to leave for the Civil War were witness to their impending death. In the late nineteenth century it was common to photograph dead babies as a way to immortalize their short lives. In the latter part of the twentieth century photography’s relationship to death expanded in the writings of Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes to include the way we understand the very nature of a photograph, always a moment that has instantly past, always engaging the notion that this moment, this life, won’t last. The exhibition still considers the diverse ways in which the work of three photographers interacts with the relationship of mortality and photography.

Slater Bradley revives the traces of Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain, left by popular imagery. In Doppelganger Bradley uses the idea of the double spirit that has attached itself to a living person to explain how he, or his own doppelganger, has been inhabited with the ghosts of dead musicians. The effect of music on a collective psyche is pervasive, but often difficult to make visible. Here we begin to understand how alive and present the dead can be.

In the work of Sally Mann, What Remains asks the question, “What is left after death?” She has photographed the Gettysburg battlefields, locations marked by death. Looking into these landscapes one can try to see what exists after these bodies that have died here, at this site, have long ago been removed. In this series she also explores the natural process of human bodies’ decomposition in photographs of a forensic study site confronting visceral emotions of life and death.

Nigel Poor collects. Her collections are a means of saying here I am, this is me, all this accumulation is who I am. In 287 Flies and Killing Season she has recorded and archived dead insects. Just as everyday moments that quickly pass can be relegated to oblivion unless somehow captured, as with a photograph, and transformed into a specific remembered instant, the dead insects are usually banished from awareness, but here are manifest into the realm of the here and now

Admission to the Center for Visual Art is free and open to the public.

Hours: Tuesday – Friday 11am - 6pm, Saturday 12 - 5pm. Admission is free.

Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>

STORY
Brent Green,
Jill Hadley Hooper,
James Surls
January 4 – February 23, 2008

Metro State Center for Visual Art presents
STORY with New York artist Brent Green and Colorado artists Jill Hadley Hooper and James Surls.

STORY brings together three artists whose artwork has a tale to tell. The exhibition is a profound collection of works that delve into created realities and visually realized narratives of the strange and familiar. The works are all inspired by the written word, allegory and the paradoxes of the human condition. Each artist’s work is infused with symbolism and a complexity that requires time and thought to unlock. The three artists share a raw aesthetic, though the manner in which it manifests is unique to each.

Brent Green’s roughhewn yet poetic animated films are influenced by music and books. His stories feature bittersweet and fragmented narratives populated with human pathos and a palette of visual metaphors. Melancholy characters dwell within Green’s handmade films. Projected films along with storyboard sketches and murals will be presented.

The context of Jill Hadley Hooper’s work hovers between dreams and reality. Figures in animal or human form inhabit the indifferent environments. Muted colors inspire a pensive mood in her simple, elegant paintings. Influenced by the written word and ideas from literature, the complexity of Hadley Hooper’s work is wrapped into the scene that she sets and the story it implies.

James Surls’ graceful wood sculptures, drawings and prints ultimately embrace nature. The gentle yet menacing forms are ambiguous in their journey towards understanding the human condition. Together the works demonstrate a juxtaposition of worlds both light and dark, whimsical in their playful, energetic execution while referencing issues of transcendence. Surls injects humor into imagery or forms that are symbolic and dualistic interpretations of nature.







Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>

SUBSTANCE:
Diverse Practices
from the Periphery
September 6 - November 9, 2007

Metro State Center for Visual Art presents
Substance: Diverse Practices from the Periphery, an international exhibition that highlights the contributions of over 30 contemporary industrial, graphic, architectural, environmental and media design innovators who are making a profound contribution to the field of design. Implicit to the processes held by these designers is a responsibility to design research and problem solving that shows a commitment to working directly with communities beyond the traditional confines of the studio environment. As a result of their work, these designers develop highly meaningful and life-altering solutions. In a consumer culture so oriented towards design today, the exhibition places specific emphasis on projects that focus on the needs of under served people, places and problems.

To show the connection between design problem and outcome, each project is supported in the exhibition by a narrative back story which may include text, images, video, sketches and notations. Text responses address the exhibition thematic criteria of Cause (the basis for the design action or response relative to the problem); Method (the manner in which the design problem was solved, how research strategy was oriented to the problem); and Impact (how the project outcome addresses the cause in a significant manner). Through this documentation we gain a better understanding of how design functions in context, moving the discussion of design beyond that of aesthetics.

Exhibition curator Lisa M. Abendroth, Associate Professor and Communication Design Coordinator at Metropolitan State College of Denver, has brought together a critical collection of timely work engaging national and international audiences and participants. Featured projects include Architecture for Humanity’s Biloxi Model Home Program; AeroVironment’s Architectural Wind Turbine; contributions by Continuum and Fuse Project for Nicolas Negroponte’s One Laptop per Child project; Design Corps’ Farmworker Housing Program; the Kinkajou Projector by Design That Matters; Electroland Studio’s Urban Nomad Shelter; Imvubu Projects’ Hippo Water Roller; Potters for Peace Ceramic Water Filter; and celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the completion of the Empathic Elder Model Research is the work of Patricia Moore of MooreDesign Associates. Boulder, Colorado-based Samson Design will also be featured with two important works included.

The Emmanuel Gallery hosted an exhibition under the same Substance title focused on international student works. For more information, go to www.emmanuelgallery.org.

Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>

Landscapes of Colorado
August 4 – 26, 2007

Metro State Center for Visual Art and Robischon Gallery present Landscapes of Colorado, a select survey of paintings, drawings and photographs by fifty-one artists committed to exploring Colorado’s natural environment. The participating artists, selected by Ann Daley, curator for the Denver Art Museum’s Institute for Western American Art, are included in the exhibition’s accompanying new book Landscapes of Colorado, featuring artist profiles written by Westword’s art critic Michael Paglia.

Participating artists are: Robert Adams, Evan Anderman, Stephen Batura, Jim Beckner, James Biggers, Gordon Brown, Susanna Cavalletti, Michael Charron, Lorenzo Chavez, Len Chmiel, Christo, Jim Colbert, Mark Daily, Stephen Day, Tim Deibler, Harold Deist, Rita Derjue, Joellyn Duesberry, Rick Dula, Buff Elting, John Encinias, Sushe Felix, Tracy Felix, David Foley, Chuck Forsman, Jeremy Hillhouse, William Hook, John Hull, Karen Kitchel, Geoffrey Lasko, Doug Martin, William Matthews, Jay Moore, Daniel Morper, Carolyn Naiman, Kevin O’Connell, Eric Paddock, David Sharpe, Mark Sink, Sallie K. Smith, Daniel Sprick, Don Stinson, Susiehyer, John Taft, Karen Vance, Kevin Weckbach, Jeff Wells, M.W. Skip Whitcomb, Richard Wieth, James Wolford and Marsha Wooley.

Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>

LOOKINGUP
May 24 - July 21, 2007

Lawrence Argent
Jennifer Ghormley
Patrick Marold
Anne Mudge

May 23, 6-7 p.m.and 12
Private Members’ Preview & Tour with CVA director / curator Jennifer Garner and artist Anne Mudge

May 24, 6-9 p.m.
Opening Reception
Artist Talk at 7 p.m.
with Patrick Marold and Lawrence Argent
Free and open to the public.

Metro State Center for Visual Art presents
LOOKINGUP, an exhibition of work that responds to natural, industrial and/or human factors through suspended sculptural forms. The dynamic installations of Lawrence Argent, Jennifer Ghormley, Anne Mudge and Patrick Marold reflect the fragility and tenacity of the world around us, revealing an interplay of opposing factors.

Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>

Collective Nouns:
Art Faculty Biennial

March 8-April 15, 2007
Collective Nouns Art Talk Series: April 11 and 12
Meet-the-Artists Reception: March 8, 7-9pm
Free and open to the public.

Representing the state’s largest art department, the Metro State art faculty is made up of a diverse group of regional artists, working in an eclectic range of media. This exhibition features an ensemble of recent works from the faculty; artists from each area of the art department will be represented. Most works in the exhibition will be for sale.

“It is very exciting to see the work of artists who are involved in academia, their significance in creating art and contributing to the growth of emerging artists is profound. The faculty exhibition will prove to be a poignant representation of Metro’s amazing Art Department.”

-Jennifer Garner
Director, Center for Visual Art

Participating artists are: Lisa Abendroth, Tonia Bonnell, Mark Brasuell, Malinda Bray, E.C. Cunningham, Rachael Delany, Jay DiLorenzo, Rebecca Dolan, Dan Donaldson, Richard Eisen, Kim Ferrer, Cinthea Fiss, Carlos Fresquez, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Ghormley, Kori Guy, Anne Hallam, Veronica Herrera, Chelsea Cecelia Hunt, Jamie Hunt, Anna Kaye, Kathleen Royster Lamb, Thomas Liphard, Patrick Loehr, J. Diane Martonis, Dawn S. Mcfadden, Christine Gabrielle Graziano-Miner, Amy Metier, Alfredo Ortiz, Kelly Monico, Bonnie Ferrill Roman, Preston Poe, Natascha Seideneck, Julia Rymer, Barbara Veatch, J.T. Urband and Jeff Weihing.

Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>

(REAL): Photographic Constructs

January 5 – February 23, 2007
Opening Reception: January 18, 7-9pm
Members: 6-7pm
Public: 7-9pm

Metro State Center for Visual Art, in collaboration with the Colorado Photographic Art Center, presents, (REAL): Photographic Constructs, an exhibition that explores perspectives in photography that visually integrate the context of created environments and reconstructing representation. Dimension, space and reality, themes that all photographers tackle to some extent, are the focus of this exhibition. Each of the works incorporate constructed realities, whether fabricated prior to the shutter release or after the photo has been printed.

Participating Artists
Local: Gwen Laine, Jon Rietfors and David Zimmer
National: Zeke Berman, Bruce Charlesworth, Gregory Crewdson, Susan Harbage Page, and Meridel Rubenstein.

The Colorado Photographic Arts Center is a non-profit, volunteer run organization dedicated to the promotion of photography as a fine art. Founded in Denver in 1963, CPAC continues to be a vital force through its ongoing exhibition programming and other related activities. For more information visit http://www.colophotoartscenter.org/.

Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>

<52': Metro State BFA Thesis Exhibition 2006

Opening Reception: Friday, December 1, 6 -10pm

The graduating students from the Department of Art at Metropolitan State College of Denver are proud to
present a collaborative creation, <52’. The BFA thesis exhibition will feature an eccentric mix of twenty-four of
Denver’s up and coming artistic talents in ceramics, drawing, installation, metalsmithing, mixed media,
painting, performance, photography, printmaking, sculpture and video/digital art.

Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>

What Sound Does a Color Make?

September 14- November 11, 2006

For some people, a stimulus to one of the five senses evokes the sensation of another sense, as when hearing a sound produces the visualization of a color. For contemporary audiovisual artists, the possibilities inspired by this phenomenon, known as synesthesia, have expanded with the advent of recent digital technologies that translate all electronic media, whether sounds or moving images, into the zeros and ones of computer bits. United by similar and overlapping premises, the works in the exhibition are widely divergent in their results. They range from large-scale immersive installations with moving forms that morph to corresponding tonal compositions, to discrete DVD stations inviting viewers to access electronic music pieces in different combinations with videos.

Participating Artists
Scott Arford, Jim Campbell, D-Fuse, Granular-Synthesis (Kurt Hentschlager & Ulf Langheinrich), Gary Hill, Thom Kubli, Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut, Robin Rimbaud (aka Scanner) in collaboration with D-Fuse, Fred Szymanski, Atau Tanaka, Steina Vasulka, Steina and Woody Vasulka, and Stephen Vitiello.

What Sound Does a Color Make? is a traveling exhibition organized and circulated by Independent Curators International (iCI), New York and curated by Kathleen Forde. The exhibition and tour are made possible, in part, by an in-kind donation from Philips Electronics North America, and by grants from The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Institut fuer Auslandsbeziehungen e. V., Stuttgart.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Multimedia Audio Visual
Coulson Construction, Inc
The Children’s Museum of Denver
Professional Sign Source, Inc
The Auraria Media Center

Upcoming Exhibitions

back to top>