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Christopher Warren: REinterpreting REcreating Nature

Exhibition Dates: February 17 – May 14, 2023

Humans have been reinterpreting nature as far back as we can record. From the paintings of lions and bulls in the Lascaux Caves of France, to the countless landscape paintings through the ages, humans have been recreating the natural world around them through visual art. In the digital era, those recreations have come in the form of isolated slices that are then turned into bits of data. Images are turned into tiny square pixels, one color each. Smooth arcing sound waves are broken into narrow rectangles that mimic the mountains and valleys of audio. Stunning landscapes are translated into concentric lines emanating from the tallest points as topographic maps. This process of digital cataloging has allowed the average internet user to access a mind-bending amount of data, but after this digital transformation, the landscape is rarely, if ever, recreated into a physical form again. REinterpreting REcreating Nature explores the digitization of natural forms, be they landscapes or biological shapes, and presents known lands and gestures in new ways, by retranslating the digital information back into a physical representation.

Christopher Warren began this artistic exploration with the recreation of landscapes through digitized topographic maps. By combining a massive trove of digitized maps, their free access on the internet, and affordable use of machinery at maker spaces across the US, he created the initial sculptures in this collection that are products of the era and technology they were created in. Warren has since expanded his initial investigation of physical recreations of digitized data to include biological forms such as hands and faces, as well as the merging of biologic and geologic forms. He also generates physical edits into the landscape to illustrate historic events that occurred on the land.

The fractal geometry of nature is a calming presence for all humans, especially since we are surrounded by the Euclidean geometry of rectangles, triangles, and circles in the modern world. Exploration through recreation of these natural forms is an endless pursuit that can veer into countless mediums and directions. Nothing can compare with the wonder of seeing a giant encompassing tree or a breathtaking mountain vista in person, but the study of human recreation of these natural forms provides a look into the inspiration that surrounds us, encompasses us, and even defines us.

This exhibit features a body of work that includes sculptures from across the entire career of Christopher Warren. While topography has been the primary focus throughout Warren’s career, and dominates the collection, wall hanging reliefs, topographic tables, free standing installations, and tabletop pieces are included.

About the Artist

Christopher Warren was born in Durango, Colorado. There he grew up exploring the towering peaks of the San Juan Mountains and the red rock canyons of Southern Utah. These iconic American landscapes instilled in him a sense of geologic wonder. He attended CU Boulder and graduated with a BFA in Film in 2013. He was awarded his first art honors through micro grants from the Durango Arts Center, and a partnership between the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and Denver Botanic Gardens. His explorations of 3D topographic sculptures launched when he became a member of the maker space “Tinkermill” in Longmont, Colorado, where affordable access to machinery allowed his imagination to flow unimpeded by financial constraints of owning his own shop. In 2018, he was awarded his first public art commission, a mural for the North Boulder Arts District. In 2019, he started painting murals across Colorado and began representation with Walker Fine Art in Denver. He also joined the board of the North Boulder Arts District in that same year. In 2020, he created multiple commissioned sculpture installations, as well as exhibited in Land Lines at Walker Fine art. Christopher Warren finds unending inspiration for sculptures and installations all around him, from hikes in Canyonlands National Park, to the stage lights at a concert, he is constantly inundated with new ideas that he hopes to one day create. More information can be found at www.beatnikprints.com.

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Image of girl sleeping in a white bed with rainbow of colors above her head

A Colorful Dream

Exhibit Dates: June 16 – August 9, 2023

Opening Reception: Thursday, June 15, 2023 at 5:30 pm

Designed to evoke and capture a sense of childhood fantasy, A Colorful Dream tells a simple coming-of-age story in rich symbolic language that takes the viewer on a journey through the entire spectrum of the rainbow.

A Colorful Dream is a family-friendly, interactive exhibition by contemporary fine art photographer Adrien Broom. The exhibit features a suite of photographs, some of them large in scale, detailing a young girl’s journey as she discovers a series of monochromatic fantasy worlds exploring the rich hues and associations that we have with every color in the spectrum. The Huffington Post describes Broom’s photography as “deeply rooted in fairy tales and mythology, reinterpreting figures like Aphrodite and stories like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

Over three years in her studio, Broom constructed eight individual sets composed of objects evoking the essence of each respective color. She then photographed a young girl exploring and traveling through each world, passing through small portals that lead her on a journey through a red world, then orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and lastly a rainbow encompassing all the colors. Encountering creatures, characters, and vivid landscapes, Broom’s protagonist finds worlds lush, joyful, and even sometimes startling.

In looking at the images, it would be easy to mistake the effects as a digital manipulation of the original photograph. In fact, Broom creates each of these worlds by hand, much like a stage production. These images are not put together using photo-editing software, but are the result of hours of crafting tableaux, so what the viewer sees is in fact what was in front of the camera’s lens during the shoot.

In addition to forty photographic images, the exhibition will include time-lapse videos showing the engrossing process of constructing the live sets for the photographs, offering insight into Broom’s creative process and the production required to bring these images to life.

Adrien Broom is a contemporary fine art and commercial photographer living in Brooklyn, New York. Broom’s fine art photography often alludes to themes of childhood fantasy, using young women as protagonists. Her commercial work includes music, fashion, and portrait photography.  Trained as a computer animator, she has studied fine art in Florence, Italy, and art history in London, England.

Taiko Chandler

Taiko Chandler: Title TBD

Exhibit Dates: September 22, 2023 – January 7, 2024

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 21, 2023 at 5:30 pm

Printmaking is Chandler’s primary art medium where she is driven to develop her own vocabulary. She is drawn, in particular, to its unpredictability. Chandler composes her work instinctively, combining shapes, colors, lines, and textures in order to express her imagination and react to the environment around her. The process is, therefore, both deliberate and iterative. She is constantly improvising with no fixed destination in mind. It is the open nature of the process that is constantly creating new possibilities. In addition to printmaking, she is interested in three-dimensional work, particularly installation art. Here, the work is also process driven. She is fascinated by the visual effect that occurs when responding to the material. There is an element of repetition in the construction of the finished piece. It is meditative yet compelling. The accumulation on a large scale changes the narrative and produces something that is transformative.

Born and raised in Nagano, Japan and originally trained as nurse, Taiko lives and works in Denver, CO. Since taking her first art class at the Art Students League of Denver, Taiko has focused on printmaking; more recently exploring other media, installation, sculpture to express her inner vision. Taiko’s work has been exhibited in Colorado (including solo exhibitions at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver Botanic Gardens) and other states, as well as numerous print fairs throughout the U.S. Her work is in private and public collections in the U.S. and Japan, including the Cleveland Clinic Art Program, University of Colorado Denver Business school, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (NY) and the Denver Art Museum (Education Collection).

https://taikochandler.com/