04 Mar Telluride Arts: Art Walk Highlites, March
It’s all about bodacious shapes: some look like escapees from a story by Dr. Seuss; others are unapologetically voluptuous.
Goedele Vanhille is a longtime, regional ceramicist whose phantasmagorical vessels amount to jewel-colored surrealistic paintings-in-the-round that allude to their modest ancestry: squash and gourds, aubergine, pears, and derrieres among the artist’s quotidian muses.
Most often, Vanhille begins with a sketch, although one idea on paper can evolve into several different pieces.
“I see the critical details – volume, lines, curves, angles – of each object better as I work back and forth between pieces,” the artist once told me.
Works by Goedele Vanhille are on display in the Daniel Tucker Gallery at the Ah Haa School for the Arts. Some of the vessels, the older work, are mostly wheel thrown, then altered. Those pieces play with the idea of functionality. The newer work, distinguished by muted colors and marks from the fire, were were hand-built and made in a gas-fired soda kiln, which the artist acquired with the help of Telluride Arts.
Malcolm “Skip” Liepke is an unapologetic sensualist and realist. The newest figurative paintings of his “harem,” now on display at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, celebrate femininity, flesh, faces, and fabric. The Minneapolis-based painter, well known in major markets such as New York and London, left a robust career in illustration for a full-time career as a fine artist.
Liepke, Behind The Mask 11 x 14, Telluride Gallery of Fine Art
(Go here to see a short video of the work.)
The opening of Vanhille’s show at Ah Haa and Liepke’s at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art coincides with Telluride Arts First Thursday Art Walk, March 6, 5 – 8 p.m., a walk about the Telluride Creative Art District to view the latest and greatest from local, regional, even national artists at venues all over town. Listen to Open Art Radio on KOTO from 12-1 p.m. on first Thursdays to hear interviews with the artists. Maps are available at participating venues and at the Telluride Arts offices located in the Stronghouse Studios + Gallery at 283 South Fir Street.
Other highly recommended shows include:
Also at Ah Haa, but in the East Gallery is a Slum Art Slam.
Slum Art Slam at Ah Haa
Discovered during Angela Pashayan’s humanitarian work in Kenya, this exhibition features works by six artists, ages 15-26. All the images are for sale (tax-deductible) and funds will provide reliable food, safe lodging, and art supplies for the artists who live in the Mukuru Slum of Kenya.
Angela Pashayan will be speaking about the Slum Art Slam project at the opening reception at 6 p.m., as part of the school’s ongoing Artist Lecture Series
Arroyo, 220 East Colorado Avenue
This fine art gallery and wine bar features renowned artists from Colorado and the four corners region, and around the country. The gallery specializes in southwest contemporary realism, in painting, photography, and mixed media on the walls as well as bronze, steel, and clay sculpture. Arroyo hosts monthly show openings and receptions, and the gallery is open late at night year ’round for guests to enjoy both the art, and also over 100 fine wines by the glass and small plate appetizers and desserts.
Dolce, 226 West Colorado Avenue, currently featuring Colorado-based bronze sculptor Sandy Graves. Her series of abstract horses is wildly expressive.
Sandy Graves at Dolce
Gallery 81435: Contemporary Telluride, 230 South Fir, 230 South Fir Street, now features ” Joan Russell: On the Edge of What One Knows.”
In this installation, Russell explores critical junctures, when we find ourselves on the edge and time stops moving. We look back. We look forward. We step off. Using 2D and an installation, Russell depicts an upwardly moving timeline featuring those “edges” or moments when we examine our actions and motivations. The overall exhibit is a contemplation of the movement of time through our lives, including those “gifts” that force us to deeply learn something new.
The World is Flat, by Joan Russell
Lustre, an Artisan Gallery, 171 South Pine.
Lustre hosts trunk show featuring the organic diamond jewelry of Colorado artist Todd Reed. For over 20 years, the metal artist has paid homage to nature’s stunning, humbling creativity through his work in precious metals, raw diamonds, and gemstones. He understands and respects the fact that neither gold nor diamonds require human intervention to be beautiful, so with delicacy and true minimalism he marries one to the other and lets their raw, earthy beauty shine through. The trunk show complements Lustre Gallery’s permanent collection of Reed’s work. (Through Sunday.)
Cuff by Todd Reed, Lustre Gallery
Melange Telluride, 109 West Colorado Avenue, “March of the Robots,” featuring the robotics works of Johnny Botts, Zina Lahr, original paintings by Chanelle Hicks, electronic sculptures by Ann Smith, woodprints by Lisa Ryan, digital prints by Evan Larson and archival prints by Amanda Baehr Fuller.
“Robot” by Johnny Botts
Oh-Be-Joyful Gallery, 333 West Colorado Avenue. Featured Artists: Ralph Oberg and Shirley Novak
Ralph Oberg has been a professional wildlife and landscape painter for 40 years, is internationally recognized in his field, painting mountains all over the world. Oberg met his wife, Shirley Novak, at a painting workshop in Aspen in 1996. Novak’s passion for flowers, color, and gardening inspires her rich and vibrant paintings. Following her bliss, she became a professional painter later in her life. As an artist, she re-creates the joy she experiences in her subjects; the flowers of her garden and wildflowers in mountain meadows. Meet these exceptional painters and enjoy wine and hors d’oeuvres.
Oberg & Novak at Oh Be Joyful
Stronghouse Studios & Gallery, 283 South Fir, “Ally Crilly: You Are Not Alone.”
“You Are Not Alone” is a show about being human. The exhibit is comprised of close-ups of human faces showing different emotions and female icons. In a way, they are all self-portraits. Ally lives and works in Telluride, Colorado.
Fishmoonheadlady, By Ally Crilly, Stronghouse Studios & GalleryStronghouse
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