6-8 PM
11 October
Culture Club
Colorado Women to Watch
August 18 – October 21, 2023
Colorado Women to Watch聽features five widely acclaimed artists who will transform CVA鈥檚 galleries through works that defy the male-dominated narrative of art. The work of聽Kim Dickey,听Ana Mar铆a Hernando,听Maia Ruth Lee,听Suchitra Mattai听补苍诲听Senga Nengudi聽breaks through boundaries, emphasizes the strength of female artists, and reshapes our perception of power. Through various media we witness these artists repossessing the discarded and retelling subverted histories with narratives of resiliency.
鈥淒espite the writings, legislation, and impassioned work of many people for decades to create equity in the arts, women artists do not receive the opportunities, resources or support that male artists do, still in 2023. This exhibition is a celebration and amplification of the ground-shaking, influential work of five women artists who have each developed a visual language of transcendence,鈥� states Cecily Cullen, CVA Director & Curator.
The ceramic sculptures of Kim Dickey聽(b. White Plains, NY) address the dismissal of decorative work as craft rather than art and transform perceptions of traditional decorative ceramics. Much of Dickey鈥檚 work incorporates bocage, the Rococo decorative art tradition of encasing objects in clustered, miniature flowers. Using such techniques, she creates large-scale sculpture from delicate, handmade elements traditionally used as decoration for small objects, transforming miniature into monumental.
Ana Mar铆a Hernando (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina) uses a variety of media to explore femininity and the power found within. Hernando seeks to make visible that which is invisible, featuring materials that are delicate, feminine, and often created or used predominantly by women. 聽Her work centers around textiles and most recently has transformed into large-scale sculptures of tulle, a material associated with brides, ballerinas, and fairytales. The scale and environment of these tulle sculptures imbue the fabric with power. The brightly colored fabrics cascade in great flows, suggesting forceful movement, or tower above viewers in monumental forms.
Maia Ruth Lee (b. Busan, South Korea) excavates her migratory upbringing in bodies of work that present the psychological experience of living a diasporic life. For this exhibition, we look to the glyphs Lee has created from the cast-off metal bits of various structures. Glyphs are the shapes and lines that we use to graphically represent language. In this way, Lee creates her own visual language pulling from the three very different cultures that have informed her identity: Korean, Nepali, American. She sees these glyphs as a combination of physical object and graphical representation, pictographs crossed with talismans.
Suchitra Mattai (b. Guyana, South America) uses her work as an exploration of diasporic identity and a reimagining of the myths, memories and narratives surrounding colonialism. Mattai pulls vintage materials from the cultures that inform her identity with a focus on objects typically associated with or crafted by women. She reconfigures these everyday objects into intricately patterned, jewel-colored, sculptures and paintings that captivate viewers鈥� attention as they reveal the stories behind them.
Senga Nengudi (b. Chicago, IL), is an essential artist within the history of performative art having arrived at her practice via the study of art and dance. Her performative sculpture is about creating an electric experience that leaves the viewer vibrating with connection. Nengudi creates extraordinary environments out of lost and forgotten places filling them with elusive shapes resembling limbs from the human body. Her sculptures have developed out of a fascination with the elasticity of the human body, particularly the female body as it experiences pregnancy, and speak to how life pulls and stretches the body out of shape.
These five artists were nominated for inclusion in the exhibition聽聽at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C.聽 The聽Women to Watch聽exhibition series is designed to increase the visibility of, and critical response to, promising women artists. Nominated for consideration by the Colorado Committee for the National Museum of Women in the Arts (CCNMWA), the five artists were selected to represent Colorado on the national level by Nora Burnett Abrams, Ph.D., Mark G. Falcone Director, MCA Denver. The exhibition at CVA was curated by Cecily Cullen. NMWA chose Ana Mar铆a Hernando to participate in the聽A New World: Women to Watch 2024听别虫丑颈产颈迟颈辞苍.
Colorado Women to Watch Artist Panel
CVA welcomed Nora Burnett Abrams, Ph.D., Mark G. Falcone Director, MCA Denver, and artists from the exhibition for a conversation about the artists鈥� influential work and artistic careers while, pondering the current state of representation. The talk was full of inspiration for us all.
Recorded 09-14-23
Featured in CVA's 965 Project Gallery
Fluid State
August 18 鈥� October 21
On view in conjunction with聽Colorado Women to Watch,听Fluid State聽expands on the limited definition of gender. In this intimate exhibition, two emerging artists from the Denver area confront the boundless quality of our self-constructed identities. Crafted objects and storylines, shifting and in flux, work to disentangle an assumption of the binary.聽Fluid State聽seeks not only to give trans and non-binary artists an access point for wider representation, but also to serve as an invitation for viewers to reflect on the many hard-edged boundaries our culture often takes as absolute.
Curated by 海角社区 student Kristi Zaragoza.聽Fluid State聽features the work of 海角社区 student Astrid Wenham and 海角社区 alum Camille Garcia.
The 965 Project Gallery is a student-led space within CVA that provides premiere professional development opportunities to students interested in fine art curation and arts administration.
