WE ARE THE SKY
The Galleries of Contemporary Art are pleased to present We Are the Sky, a group exhibition featuring artworks created by 40+ Pikes Peak region artists! We Are the Sky will be on-view from July 11 – October 5, 2024, at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery at the Ent Center for the Arts. The opening reception is on Thursday, July 11th from 4-7pm, with a collection of site-specific activations and performances that can only be experienced during the opening!
Featuring more than 40 artists from throughout the Pikes Peak region, We Are the Sky is inspired by the work of late Colorado Springs artist Starr Kempf, whose monumental kinetic sculptures punctuate our local landscape. More than 80 artists responded to a call for entries, challenging them to respond not to Kempf’s forms or subjects, but instead to powerful themes present in the artist’s life and oeuvre. Mental health and wellness, community identity and interpersonal connection, and a spirit of innovation are central to each offering, inclusive of 2D and 3D gallery works to performances and ephemeral experiences.
Over the course of three months, We Are the Sky will create space for poignant narratives around our unique and shared human experiences, a testament to the power of art in fostering dialogue, understanding, and healing. Within the gallery exhibition and related events, artists illuminate the interconnectedness of individual struggles and collective resilience, inviting viewers to engage in discourse and introspection. These 19 artworks address complexities of mental health, inclusion, and invention with empathy and solidarity, and all are new creations, born out of creative experimentation and collaboration.
ALMALGAMATED LANDSCAPES
This series of cross-processed artworks creates a multilayered map of the artist’s meandering through our local landscape over the last three years. Consciously collected natural artifacts—stones, bark, flowers, seeds, fungi, and more—were scanned then returned to their place of origin. The resulting cyanotypes are each etched with a unique pattern that delineates the associated hiking path as recorded by GPS. Resembling wind movement and shadows, these “drawings” tell a story of artist and object in a time and place: the complex, changing ecology of Colorado. Inspired by nature and driven by climate change, Warner’s art always includes intense scientific research that weaves into the creative process. Originally from Eastern Europe, Darya Warner states that, since arriving in Colorado in 2021, “all I see is the SKY. I flood my mom with images of the landscape that are always followed by one word comment from her: ‘Cosmos.’ I thought working with cyanotypes might bring me closer to describing how I felt every time looking up: the sky consumed, melted and dissolved me - the dive into the blue reminded me of the seawater that I miss so much. The heat and the burn of the laser amalgamated with cyanotype process embodies the sun, the sky, and surrounding landscape into one entity, encapsulating the feeling I get when I go outside: radiance of life despite it all.”