January 20th from 7 – 9pm

Members: $10 / Non-Members: $15

Experience Stephen Batura’s work in a whole new way – through your sense of smell. Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s scent interpretations of Batura’s paintings bring a whole new dimension to the exhibition while exploring the realm of scent as art.

UPCYCLED: Spring/Summer 2010 is a group exhibition of wearable art made from recycled materials, featuring the work of Judith Selby Lang, Sara Goldenberg, and the Wearable Shelter Project. Each of these works shows the hidden beauty and value in the detritus of our consumer society. For the past ten years, Judith Selby Lang has been collecting trash on Kehoe Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California together with her husband Richard Lang. As a befitting representation of their shared passion, she created her wedding ensemble entirely from reused, recycled materials. Boulder-based artist Sara Goldenberg White shows an installation including several gowns with surrounding environment made from collected scrap and waste materials. A design-team at the Philadelphia University of the Arts created Wearable Shelters as a solution for a hypothetical post-disaster scenario in a metropolitan area. Constructed from repurposed thrift-store sleeping bags, exercise clothing, and performance jackets, the pieces act as protective all-weather gear in the day and insulating shelter at night.

This exhibition is curated by Jennifer Heath and Joan Markowitz in connection with Resurrections: ECO-logy and ECO-nomy, on view at the Boulder Public Library from May 1 to June 30, 2010.

Humor & Pathos aptly describes Gary Sweeney’s approach to art and life in general. Contagiously charismatic with a refined taste for wittiness, Sweeney’s visual vocabulary includes common icons of popular culture, ranging from hand-painted advertisement and neon signs to television shows and road trip memorabilia. This all-American aesthetic, reminiscent of his 1950s Southern California childhood, has an unthreatening, familiar appeal. But this keen observer of civilization’s phenomena and societal oddities leaves us strangely bemused, wondering weather we should laugh or cry in the face of our own imperfections. Within the easy-going world of Sweeney’s creation, we may happen upon the serious side of the human condition.

Sweeney, who is now based in San Antonio, Texas, has lived in Colorado for many years and is well remembered here, especially for his work America, Why I Love Her, a two-panel relief map of the United States on permanent display at Denver International Airport. Technically well-versed in printmaking and figure drawing, Sweeney is best known for his conceptual text and language-based work. His exhibition at BMoCA includes a neon sign installation inspired by a true love story and a large-scale house of cards as a powerful symbol for instability. The exhibition continues with a mosaic made from cups inserted into the chain link fence in Boulder’s Central Park, across from the museum.

Through monotypes, serigraphs, charcoal drawings and a mural installation we get a glimpse of the melding of histories, traditions, culture and politics of our ever expanding and diversified population. Additionally, Ortega will create murals in collaboration with students from “I Have A Dream” Foundation of Boulder County and The Family Learning Center. Following their display at BMoCA during the exhibition, the murals will be on view at the Boulder Public Library and Denver Public Library. This exhibition is organized in connection with the Denver Biennial of the Americas 2010. Additional support comes from the Boulder Arts Commission and the Kevin Luff Family Fund