Esther and John Clay Fine Art Gallery

Inner Compulsion emerged from the idea of duration, repetition, and the relationship between body, time, and labor. These elements are embodied in black and red hand embroidery stitches on muslin fabric. The pieces are fictional autobiographies, constructing a visual narrative over a seven-year period, revealing an ongoing continuum. Through slow, deliberate marks, they disclose intimate tensions and psychological states, stemming from an inner force to understand the self in relation to everyday experiences. These works are methods of tracking one's being over a limited period, with repetition within the series capturing paused moments of transformation, fueled by memories, stories, and past events, reinforced by the present. This process is a highly intuitive study, creating slow drawings that serve as a visual record of time, reflecting history and its passage.

Artist Statement:

“Painting is a reflection of the soul. One paints their soul by borrowing the object. Without the spirit, what is black is only ink, what is white is only paper”

- Yi MunYeol

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Each painting here represents a special moment to me. A contemplative snapshot and earnest attempt to share the soul of a place and time through color, composition, and brushwork. In my
painting education I learned to accurately copy shape, value, hue and chroma. But these elements alone do not make a painting. Painting to me is a reflection or conversation, rather than a literal visual translation. The quote above expresses that essential element I strive to achieve in all my work.

My goal is to present you, the viewer, with the spirit of a place and time. Most of these works are painted on location. I believe that working this way allows the soul of a place to enter the artwork and transform it into more than the sum of its parts. With a successful painting, at some almost indiscernible moment, some key brushstroke or color transcends it from a simple representation into its own being.

Art making for me is a spiritual and intentional practice. My hope is for a painting to emerge as an almost accidental by-product of participating in still moments. Natural and spiritual discovery
is the true art, and painting is the material result. Through this process of outward and inward exploration, I aim to find something beautiful or unexpected and share that with the viewer.

Learn more about Conner Choi: www.connerchoi.com

Artist Bio:

Andrew Woodward's cityscapes and landscapes emanate light and shadow interwoven within rhythms of time, color, contrast and depth.  Both intimate and vast, the paintings are portraits of architecture and nature, archetypes of an ever evolving world.

The Denver native received his BA from Kenyon College, OH, 1998, before living in Boston, MA for over a decade.  He returned to Denver with his wife and two children in 2012.

Woodward's paintings are currently represented by Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, CA and Arden Gallery, Boston, MA.  He won a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation in May 2015 and his works are in the collections of 1st Bank, Denver, CO; Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber & Schreck, Denver, CO; Cambridge Trust, Boston, MA and Cambridge, MA; Denver Grand Hyatt Hotel, Denver, CO; Farley White Interests, Boston MA; Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA; Kenyon College, Gambier OH; The Leadership Investment, Denver, CO; National Cooperative Bank, Arlington, VA; AMG National Trust Bank, Greenwood Village, CO; Renaissance Boulder Flatiron Hotel, Boulder, CO; The Thompson Hotel, Denver, CO; William Blair Investments, Boston, MA."

Known for working in pastels for nearly 30 years, Colette is a painter of contemporary landscapes that often blur the distinctions between realism and abstraction. The driving force behind her work is her interest in finding and amplifying the beauty and mystery that exists quietly all around us, both obvious and hidden. Colette is always looking for ways that the humblest scenes reveal profound insights and offer wordless understanding.

I make useful ceramic vessels that are designed for aesthetic pleasure as well as utility. I am attempting, via my work, to enter into the very personal space of the viewer/user’s home, thus participating in the intimate (and very necessary) rituals of another’s daily life. From the consumption of food to the decoration of the home, function and aesthetics can co-exist in all aspects of life. My work runs the gamut between traditional or historically significant forms and inspirations and a more postmodern pastiche of style, colors, and decorative patterns. I see the items that I make as being useful “jewels” - shiny, small in stature, and made with as much care as possible. I love beauty and elegance as much as quirkiness and playfulness, and my vessels seek to allow the user to share my passions. Decoration versus content, beauty versus pragmatism; these are the dialectics that inform my work. 
 
Each new form begins as a conscious process of experimentation and elimination, begun on the potter’s wheel and then changing through alteration and sometimes adding hand-built components. With repeated forms, each new round of creation is my attempt to further develop aspects of form or surface. I decorate with a combination of pattern and areas of color, attempting to weave these fields together to present a cohesive whole that glows with its own poise. I’m trying to make the most beautiful pieces that I can, that function as well as they possibly can.

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Artist Bio

Shana Salaff lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is a studio potter as well as a frequent contributor to Pottery Making Illustrated and Ceramic Monthly Originally from Toronto, Shana received a diploma in Ceramics from the School of Craft and Design at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1998. She became a studio potter for 7 years, running Wareshana Pottery in Halifax. Returning to academia in 2005, she earned an MFA in Ceramics from California State University, Fullerton. After graduation, she was artist-in-resident at Art 342 in Fort Collins, where she fell in love with the area. After a second residency, at the PauKune Wanner Art Haus in Severance, CO, she moved into Fort Collins. Currently Shana is a studio potter who teaches workshops and classes in the area.

Exhibition Statement:

A liquid is a fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a constant volume irrespective of pressure. Time is a measurable, observable phenomenon that is recognized by consciousness.

As an artist working within the time-based medium of video, I am interested in deconstructing how we think about video. Often, we are looking at a video that is a realistic representation of something in the world. This illusion is seen through a "window" - a window that might be a computer monitor, a phone's edges, or even a window within the window of a browser. What if we take a deeper look at video and tease apart some of the formats and expectations around viewing?

In the series labeled “Containers I - V” on the walls of the Clay gallery, viewers will see videos that echo the shapes and forms found in bodies of water. These waves, ripples, and rivulets aren’t video captures of a body of water, instead this content is generated from analog oscillating waveforms. Through a generous artist residency hosted by Signal Culture, I was able to explore equipment that generates visuals from the movement of electrons. In so many ways, video is fundamentally the movement of electrons - and the opportunity to generate abstract content was an exciting one. 

On the other end of the spectrum, I wanted to examine how video is displayed in terms of its “container”. The series labeled “Extractions I - III” uses recorded video of bodies of water, this exhibition extracts the content from the 3:2 rectangular perspective. Echoed on the walls are 3D models of the original environment.

Breaking down surrounding environments, I've highlighted the portion of the video that frames the liquid. These shapes now host video loops, extracted from the external structures of the original video. It is my hope that viewers can witness these moments in time and still experience the moments of quiet that I experienced at the water's edge when recording them.

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Artist Bio:

Cye Tornatzky

Master of Fine Art in Conceptual/Information Arts at San Francisco State University 

Master of Arts in Education at San Francisco State University 

Bachelor of Art in Philosophy at College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio

Research and Artistry:

Cyane Tornatzky is an artist who uses multimedia materials to create 2D, 3D and time-based artworks. Her focus is on collaborating with technology in a way that allows for experimentation within personal narrative. In 2015, Tornatzky founded the Electronic Art program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins Colorado.

Tornatzky’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has attended a new media focused residency at ISIS Arts in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK as well as an art and science residency at Foundation OBRAS-Holland in The Netherlands. Tornatzky has just completed a residency at Signal Culture’s Artist in Residence program in Loveland, Colorado. She has exhibited in Meow Wolf Denver, the Denver Art Museum's MOV (Month of Video), and will be hosting a solo show at the Esther and John Clay Fine Art Gallery - LCCC | Laramie County Community College, in Cheyenne, WY and “Currents Festival 2022: Circuits art + technology festival”, Santa Fe Fairgrounds. Tornatzky’s work is in the collections of Portman Holdings and Hensel Phelps for Union Tower West in Denver Colorado, as well as archived at the University of Austin, Texas.

Exhibition Statement:

Trauma is a universal human condition, yet healing often remains elusive. In a world filled with chaos and turmoil, "Healing Threads" offers a sanctuary for the weary, a place where the journey from darkness to light is not only symbolic but tangible. This immersive installation invites you to embark on an expedition of self-discovery and renewal, as you navigate through a labyrinth of hanging ribbons that seamlessly transition from black to a vibrant spectrum of colors. At its heart, a striking sculpture of the mystical Iboga plant stands as a sentinel, a symbol of awakening and transformation.

As you step into this mesmeric experience, you begin your pilgrimage towards physical, mental, and spiritual rejuvenation. The ribbons, initially perceived to be an endless sea of black, illustrate the struggles and challenges faced in life—moments of despair, uncertainty, and pain. The transition from black to a kaleidoscope of colors symbolizes the joy and enlightenment brought by the metamorphic capability of iboga for resilience and rebirth. As you travel through this shifting landscape of ribbons, you will find that healing is not a linear process but a dynamic and evolving one.

At the center of "Healing Threads" stands the Iboga sculpture, an embodiment of ancient wisdom and innate rehabilitation. This African plant is revered for its ability to guide individuals towards introspection and profound restoration. Its presence at the center of the exhibit serves as a reminder that within each of us lies the potential for fathomless change.

"Healing Threads" encourages you to walk through the ribbons, allowing the tactile sensations to mirror your emotional responses. Feel the ribbons brush against your skin, letting the textures and colors wash over you, invoking a sense of wonder, connection, and release. As you travel through the artwork, contemplate your own path towards healing and the myriad ways in which you can find solace and strength.

The exhibit is an encouragement to ponder your individual odyssey, to discover that healing is not an end point but a continuous process of reflection and evolution, involving the body, mind and soul.  "Healing Threads" is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and a tribute to the power of both iboga and art to illuminate our path towards wholeness. As you maneuver the stratum of ribbons and encounter the Iboga sculpture, may you find moments of clarity, inspiration, and the realization that self-exploration is a quest worth undertaking. The time of suffering is over; the time for healing is now.

Artist Statement:

I am an incredibly inquisitive dreamer with a deep love for discovery and exploration. Having a formal education in biology, I conceptualize as a scientist and generate work through the creative filter of an artist. Multi-sensory engagement has an immense impact on my interpretation of the world, resulting in the regular integration of sensational elements into my designs. Texture, color, light, sound, temperature, scent, vestibular perception and proprioception play important roles individually or in concert, inviting participation with interactive pieces or immersion into encompassing environments. I enjoy embedding hidden elements tucked away for the most curious to find. While much of my work is strikingly colorful, playful and lighthearted, I occasionally create visceral, destructive, monochromatic pieces, and I appreciate working on projects that promote dialog around current social or environmental issues. 

Artist Bio:

Tiffany Matheson is a mixed and multimedia artist native to and working in Denver, CO who specializes in sculpture, installation, performance and public art. She holds a bachelor's degree in Biology with Studies in Sculpture from CU Denver, and has experience with mold making and casting, woodworking, welding, textiles, acrylic manipulation, electronics, music, written word, and more. While her work varies greatly, she is inspired by light, texture, sound, color, nature, the botanical world, and outer space. She often includes elements of exploration, play, discovery, mathematics, hidden elements, and puzzles in her art, and places emphasis on precision and attention to detail. 

Exhibition Statement:

[Keys of Fury] is a typing project (KYBDslöjd) that makes material the text characters while typing on the keyboard. This process slows down the interaction between the end-user and the computer, which prompts questions about our relationships with technology. The computer is a tool that allows us to express ideas visually in contrast to the constant connection to technology and its functionality today. The use of obsolete and vintage computers examines how these tools can still serve a vital function. The characters in Commodore 64 (PETSCII) are used without ornament like concrete in brutalist architecture, capturing the spirit and the contradictions of our time. 

KYBDslöjd uses a particular way of working with keystrokes and PETSCII on the Commodore 64 with software developed by Mathman (Johan Kotlinski) called Nop. The program consists of two parts: a block of data statements containing the instructions (where all the keystrokes are recorded), and a section of code, which reads the data and outputs the animation. There is no menu, so all the instructions; like color, position, and character shape are typed on the keyboard. A black screen with a blinking cursor is the starting point to build graphics and animations, character by character. This process is like cross-stitch, a form of counted thread embroidery, or the typewriter technique, both not allowing for corrections. Any unintended strikes force the user to start all over again. In KYBDslöjd, hardware and software are a challenge, they are not decorations, or sources of nostalgia. It is a conversation about why we must return to a deeper understanding of the technology that has infiltrated our everyday lives.  We must continue innumerable acts of resistance. The tyranny of the “easy to use” and immediate gratification are dissuasive tactics that lead toward boredom.

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Artist Bio:

Raquel Meyers (Cartagena, Spain b. 1977) works with obsolete technologies like the Commodore 64, Teletext, typewriters or fax machines mixed with photography, animation and embroidery, among other techniques. She defines her practice as KYBDslöjd [mecanografía expandida] whose significance can be defined roughly as <a manual skill with a keyboard>. It is based on and refers to the typewriter, Concrete Poetry, Demoscene and Brutalism. The keystrokes contribute to the execution, while poetry contributes to a system, through revealing the architecture of PETSCII, the raw and unadorned character set of Commodore 64. Her work has been shown in art centers, galleries and festivals such as Ars Electronica, Transmediale, Xpo Gallery Paris, P21 Gallery Seoul, La Casa encendida, Liste Art Fair Basel, La Gaîté lyrique, Tokyo Blip Festival, Square Sounds Melbourne, Vector Festival, LABoral, the Digerati Emergent Media Festival (Formerly Supernova), iMAL, SeMa Nanji, VISION’R, Mapping, Piksel, Shibuya Pixel Art, LEV, MFRU, HeK, Fylkingen, and PlatteForum.

www.raquelmeyers.com

Robert and his wife have a gallery in Riverton. He is currently showing an exhibit in Cheyenne at the Wyoming State Museum called “Grounded”. Much of Robert’s current work uses the historical imagery, myth’s and stories of the West & Arapaho Culture combined with modern themes to create images that have a statement on the issues of today. Using intense vibrant color and contrasting shades of light and dark, he paints and draws striking forms that are confronting and engages the viewer.

His paintings and drawings have been shown across the Nation and have garnered noted acclaim. He’s been given Wyoming’s highest award for the arts, the Wyoming Governors Art Award. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Wyoming State Museum, The Brinton Museum, The Plains Indian Museum at the Cody Center of the West, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

A strong supporter of Education and of the Arts, Robert devotes time to helping and mentoring emerging artists on his reservation and throughout the Nation. He gives back to the community by speaking about art topics, giving workshops, and demonstrates his style to schools, agencies and art groups.

My work attempts to convey the importance of touch and conveys the process of pottery making and the experiential properties of working in the studio. An- other passion of mine is marine life, so including textures and colors that refer to the coral reef is a natural fit for my work. 

Conveying the tactile quality of working with clay while also referring to the pace of studio work is important to my practice. I attempt to describe the qualities of the clay at all stages of making so that anybody can feel a connection to the process when holding and using the pottery. One way I do this is to leave throwing rings on the insides of my pots while taking care to compress the exterior with a metal rib. I also carefully craft the foot rim while throwing, or keep the piece wet while trimming, which enables me to move the clay farther, showing the plasticity and adding some playful individuality to each piece. When the clay is leather hard, I use a variety of tools to plan out where I’ll put surface decorations. I further the personal narrative of my work by using one of my daughter’s sewing tools to draw lines on the surface. 

I have dedicated my artistic practice to exploring seemingly random visual elements by painting them in layers using mixed media. My work is a dense amalgamation of symbols and abstraction that I procure from the often crowded and chaotic urban landscape to excite the viewer’s senses. My work is focused on an intense and long process of reacting to the tools and surface by responding to any desired element according to historical embodiment and techniques that give my elements a reference to expressionism, though I can’t define my approach in only one movement. Eternally the impressions and expression of what my tools give me leave reminisces of those histories of the moment I currently find myself observing.

My philosophy is to be as sentient with visual interpretations as possible and make work that will challenge my own assumptions of what art can be. For me, the beauty lies between the layers and those elements that offer the most meaningful relationship between the art and what the viewer experiences. I evoke a visual tension between environments of abstraction and symbolism. That tension can be the most meaningful facet of my artistic process. My imagery I chose is a relationship with the viewer that I use to gain access to the emotional and imagination that creates a dialogue that I feel explores our human story. 

Ripples of the Void explores the ongoing exploration and collaboration of Artificial intelligence and artists. By merging art with technology we can create a glimpse of a new humanity which will evolve to understand art and science. We are the pioneers who can grow our minds and merge it with technologies to explore a new art form with a human sensory experience. I challenge viewers to pull from their own experiences and develop a story tailored to their own life and imagination. Guided by imagery and details, these stories push me to explore paintings in new ways for every new project.  Relying on the fundamentals of art, I push myself to use new techniques, materials, and reinvent ways to show artwork.   

 
Ripples of the Void is an expansion on my earlier series titled “Vaporwave” which is an exploration of the subliminal effects of pop culture’s influence on our inner psyche. This is an ongoing evolution that has been exacerbated by the popularization of Artificial Intelligent tools.  Challenging what we know about creativity and the use of tools in art. The field of artificial intelligence is rapidly improving human capabilities by making machines think and act like humans. Since AI is currently being applied for good purposes, there's no reason not to use it in innovative ways today. AI will undoubtedly affect how we work, communicate, entertain ourselves, protect ourselves from threats and numerous other things in the future. Until then, I will keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible with artificial intelligence!

Laura Shill is an interdisciplinary artist based in Denver, CO, whose work is a combination of sculpture, installation, performance, and photography. Her work addresses ideas of disclosure and concealment, agency and emotional risk, desire and discontent, often oscillating between humor and heartbreak.  Often present in her work are the pronounced absences she creates to make visible the invisible power structures that inform our relationships to each other or conceal the work of care that props up the whole human endeavor. Her sculptural and installation works borrow theatrical conventions as a nod to the performance of the self that we undertake daily. Many of these works invite touch and blur boundaries between public and private space. Shill employs repetition of form to create environments that make thousands of hours of invisible labor material. She uses everyday objects and supplies to make these works, often salvaged from roadsides and thrift stores or scavenged from former iterations of projects to test her theory that anything can be transformed with enough time and attention and care.

Shill has exhibited work nationally and internationally at an official satellite of the 57th Venice Biennale at the European Cultural Center, The Gallery of Contemporary Art, Colorado Springs, David B. Smith Gallery, Denver, Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago, and Durden and Ray, Los Angeles. She earned an MFA in Interdisciplinary Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2012. Images from her Hidden Mother archive were included in the 2013 Photographers’ Gallery London exhibition, Home Truths, Photography and Motherhood, and were published in the catalog edited by Susan Bright. For her 2016 solo exhibition, Phantom Touch, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Shill developed and relied on a community-based equitable barter system for artistic labor and production to realize an ambitiously soft environment. 

Eclectic Motion, a solo exhibition of works by Emma Balder, channels an array of movements within the natural world. A diverse collection of fiber paintings and sculptural paintings, each work captures moments frozen in the midst of change: clouds drifting by, an undulating wave, the erratic force of the wind. Reflecting a continual experimentation in Balder’s practice, the works place material transformation at the forefront. As curator Heather Bhandari states, “the pieces give a lasting impression of motion and serve as a compelling reminder of what it means to be alive – that breaking, mending, rearrangement, and renewal are constant truths.” While movement presents itself in many forms, its message remains the same; movement creates change, and change is a cornerstone to growth.

“A Thousand Words” examines the interplay between the figurative & literal term consisting of several 8" X 5" collages incorporated with drawings of peoples’ faces executed on text-filled newsprint pages. When looking at a person’s facial expression, you can tell how they’re feeling at that particular moment whereas text, words, verbiage and recognizable text/identity marks explains it for you. Either way, we’re provided a mental picture from both, which illustrate the fact that a picture is worth “A Thousand Words” illustrated on a thousand words.

Art has the ability to empower people and evoke social change.  At its core my work addresses issues of power- who has it, how it should be used, and how to find and wield our own power.  It is largely spurred by corruption, greed, labor exploitation and class struggle.  Through it, I strive to question and challenge power structures but also offer hope and a sense of solidarity to those who feel vulnerable.