Espiritu Hermosx Beautiful Spirit
I’m honored to make my curatorial debut with Espiritu Hermosx/Beautiful Spirit at Museo De Las Americas!
This exhibition emphasizes LGBTQ+ Latinx contemporary artists exploring themes of gender identity, civil rights and resilience. This community often experiences discrimination based on their cultural identity, gender identity and sexual preference. The impact of these experiences enables the artist to fight for equality, as they offer unique narratives to start conversations and inspire social change.
Traditional uses of clay, retablo and painting offer exploration into ancient processes based on ancestry, colonization and faith. Contemporary uses of animation, installation, and sculpture offer voices of activism against the dystopian state of our world. Through these mediums, artists address various issues, from self-love, intimate relations, culture, and identity politics. Looking at the many labels these artists wear, it is important to recognize the intersections and the relation to their community. By sharing their stories on navigating identity, mixed race, sexual trauma, grief and happiness, Espiritu Hermosx/Beautiful Spirit, provides a space where their self-expression is out and proud.
Artists:
Cal Duran, Lares Feliciano, Alexander Hernandez, Joel Hernandez, Emilio Lobato, Cherish Marquez, Adrian Raya, Louis Trujillo, Sean Trujillo, Eliazar Ortiz, Claudia Zapata.
Opening Reception: Thursday March 28 6-9pm
On display, March 28-July 14, 2024
Museo De Las Americas
861 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Tuesday-Friday 12-6pm
Saturday-Sunday 12-5pm
Performing Self
Performing Self is a look into how seven multidisciplinary artists celebrate the mutability of self-identity through the embodiment of altar egos and personae. Through photography, video, painting, and installation, artists Louis Trujillo, Tobias Fike, Noa Fodrie, Laura Lee Shill, Eriko Tsogo, and Sherry Wiggins & Luis Filipe Branco reveal how performance plays a role in the fluid construction of self-portraiture in our increasingly image-conscious culture.
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 25, 6-8pm with a performance by Louis Trujillo at 6:45pm
On display: January 25-April 28, 2024
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
1750 13th Street
Boulder, CO 80302
Museum Hours:
Tuesday-Sunday 11am-5pm
Crossing Borders
Crossing Borders explores the ways in which we navigate physical and invisible boundaries set by our emotional and cultural landscapes. This exhibit is curated and organized by Angela Astle & Anne Meyers with Athena Project and Melissa Furness & Anna Kaye with PINKPROGRESSION.
Opening reception: Friday, October 6th, 6-9pm
On display: October 6-28, 2023
40 West Gallery
6501 W. Colfax Ave
Lakewood, CO 80214
Gallery hours:
Wednesday - Sunday 12-4pm
First Friday, 6-9pm
Participating Artists:
Louis Trujillo, Carlos Frezquez, Sarah Fukami, Melissa Furness, Narkita Gold, Margaret Kasahara, Cherish Marquez, Laleh Mehran, Onecho, Sangeeta Reddy, Autumn T. Thomas, Eriko Tsogo, Becky Wareing Steele, Melanie Yazzie, and Belgin Yucelen
Please join us at Crossing Borders on Thursday, October 19th at 6:30PM for Athena Project's Artful Reflections event. This monthly event invites us to reflect on the art in the exhibit. Through the participants’ experience of the art and the moderated conversations that follow, connection and community are strengthened.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
DARIA Art Magazine
Click here to check out this great review of the “Prismatic” exhibition in DARIA Art Magazine!
Prismatic
Prismatic is an exhibition celebrating the queer community across the Front Range for Pride month, most often celebrated in June. This exhibition was curated along a simple idea that allowed breadth for personal interpretation: color and space.
Often confined to queer art showcases, gay rights exhibitions, queer material or sexuality-themed shows, The Dairy intentionally called artists who identify within the LGBTQIA+ community to display the layers of richness within their own personal practices’ with the only qualification being color. Some artists choose to dive deep within their sexuality and unearth injustices present within our current political climate, while other artists choose to meditate on the land, exploring materials and creatures that connect with the human experience.
Opening Reception: May 12, 8-8pm
On display: May 12-July 6, 2023
The Dairy Arts Center
2590 Walnut
Boulder, CO 80302
Gallery Hours:
Monday-Friday 12pm-6pm
Saturday 12pm-7:30pm
Sunday 12pm-5:30pm
Participating Artists:
Louis Trujillo, Tyler Alpern, Finley Baker, Shaunie Berry, Scottie Burgess, Carey Candrian, San Canessa, Dagny Chika, Sarah Darlene, JUHB, Jesse Egner, Levi Fischer, Kate Geman, Nathan Hall, Hudson Hatfield, Sophie Hill, Grace Hoag, Kora Hope, Padyn Humble, Talia Johns, Alli Lemon, Cherish Marquez, Robert Martin, Dez Merworth, Nems, Zachariah Rampulla, Alexander Richard Wilson, Tracy Stegall, Joel Swanson, Chloe Wilwerding
DARIA Art Magazine
Click here to check out this great review of the 3rd Annual “Us” exhibition in DARIA Art Magazine!
Us
I am honored to be included Bitfactory Gallery’s 3rd annual Us exhibition featuring Denver queer artists.
LGBTQ+ artists have been, and always will be active in the art world but are underrepresented in galleries and exhibitions. Bitfactory Gallery proudly present Us, an art exhibition by Denver local queer artists. While the show is comprised entirely of artists that identify as something other than straight, the intention is not to further segregate and separate one community from another. Us is intended to demonstrate that, regardless of the pronoun one uses, art enriches all our lives. Come help us kick-off Denver’s Pride Week and celebrate the fact that we are all part of Us!
Opening Reception: June 17, 6-9pm
First Friday Reception: July 1, 6-9pm
Closing Reception: July 8, 6-9pm
On display: June 17-July 8, 2022
Bitfactory Gallery
851 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday 11am-4pm
and by appointment
No Show
Bitfactory Gallery opens the new year with its Annual No Show exhibition. For the 6th year in a row, local artists were invited to display two works representing their own particular style, resulting in an engaging exhibit with an eclectic mix of genres from hyper-realism to neo-expressionism.
Opening Reception: Friday, January 21, 6-9pm
First Friday Art Walk: February 2, 6-9pm
First Friday Art Walk: March 3, 6-9pm
On Display: January 21 through March 10, 2022
Bitfactory Gallery
851 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Gallery Hours:
Tuesdays-Saturdays 11:30am-3pm
And by appointment
View and purchase art from the exhibition online at https://shop.bitfactory.net/
Artists: Louis Trujillo, Art by 13 Jennifer Bobola, Abe Brennan, Bruno D’Anna, Cody Day, Annie Decamp, Dan Drossman, David Eichler, Tadashi Hayakawa, Kelley James, Daithi Kelley, Rick Knight, A. L. Lummus, Johanna Morrell, Ira Sherman, and Jeff Velarde. Works range from acrylic, oil, and encaustic painting to sculpture, drawing and photography.
El Poder de la Familia/Power of Family
A work from my Forget-Me-Not series will be included in the exhibition El Poder de la Familia/Power of Family at Children’s Hospital Colorado in their Frederic C. Hamilton Fine Art Gallery. The exhibition is in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.
Forget-Me-Not was created to honor my late Great-Grandmother, my late Grandfather and everybody who has experienced the devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease. The works were created using mixed media on paper to create hundreds of forget me not flower shapes that are individually pinned to the wall. The different media that I used to create the works include gouache, acrylic, copper leaf, patina, rust and inkjet prints of photos of my family. I donate a portion of profits from this series to Alzheimer's organizations.
On display: August 26-Novemver 6, 2021
Children’s Hospital Colorado
13123 East 16th Avenue, 160
Aurora, CO 80045
Us
I am honored to be included Bitfactory Gallery’s 2nd annual Us exhibition featuring Denver queer artists.
LGBTQ+ artists have been, and always will be active in the art world but are underrepresented in galleries and exhibitions. Bitfactory Gallery proudly present Us, an art exhibition by Denver local queer artists. While the show is comprised entirely of artists that identify as something other than straight, the intention is not to further segregate and separate one community from another. Us is intended to demonstrate that, regardless of the pronoun one uses, art enriches all our lives. Come help us kick-off Denver’s Pride Week and celebrate the fact that we are all part of Us!
Opening Reception: June 18, 6-9pm
On display: June 18-July 8, 2021
Bitfactory Gallery
851 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday 11am-4pm
and by appointment
OUT FRONT Magazine
I’m excited to share my interview with OUT FRONT’s co-publisher and editor in chief Addison Herron-Wheeler.
Click here to read the article.
No Show
I’m excited to announce that I have been invited into Bitfactory Gallery’s 5th Annual “No Show” group exhibition.
On display: January 22-February 11, 2021
Bitfactory Gallery
851 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Colorado Draws
I am excited to participate in “Colorado Draws,” a Juried Exhibition at Spark Gallery.
Exhibition Statement:
Drawing is often viewed as preparation for further work. We start 2021 celebrating drawing itself and the fundamental beauty of mark-making. From pre-history to DaVinci and Klee to Koons, drawing is part of virtually every artist's repertoire. These Colorado artists present a wide range of styles and subjects from Abstraction to Realism.
On Display: January 8-February 28, 2021
Spark Gallery
900 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Lavender Mist: Gay Men in Contemporary Art in Colorado
I am honored to be included in the group exhibition “Lavender Mist: Gay Men in Contemporary Art in Colorado” curated by Michael Paglia at McNichols Civic Center.
This exhibit zeroes-in on some of the state’s most significant contemporary artists who also happen to be gay; a key constituent of the larger LGBTQ+ community. Gay men have often played an outsized role throughout the history of art, which is reflected in Colorado’s contemporary art scene, now and in the recent past.
Focusing exclusively on the work of gay men presents certain challenges in organizing the relevant material, most obviously because there is no real unified stylistic or topical language among their community. This is starkly unlike, for example, feminist artists or Chicano artists that do share certain styles, topics and themes. Yet the distinct identity of being a gay man within the larger heteronormative community inevitably creates what could be called a position of “otherness.” That characteristic must be expressed somehow in the work, given how deeply personal art making invariably is. Their shared identity assigns to these artists a special way of seeing the world, enlightened by the richness of their unique shared experiences. Like other marginalized communities, these experiences concern acceptance, the struggle for equality, the resistance to bigotry and even the avoidance of hatred.
The organizing armature of this show is this “otherness,” which can be understood as a distinctive sensibility regardless of the styles or subjects the artists embrace. Identifying this quality has long been downplayed or ignored outright in the art world. This is because, (beyond the obvious, which is deeply-rooted homophobia,) the visible evidence in art of this particular “otherness” is often something that is all-but ineffable.
The exhibition, Lavender Mist: Gay Men in Contemporary Art in Colorado, attempts to locate this characteristic of “otherness” in the intelligence and exquisite taste by which everything these particular gay artists have realized. In that way, the gay identity certainly and necessarily played a significant part in their individual development as accomplished artists.
Artist Reception: Friday, August 14 from 6-9pm
On Display: May 30-August 30, 2020
Boettcher Cultural Pavilion, Second Floor,
McNichols Civic Center Building
144 W. Colfax Avenue
Denver, CO 80204
Artist Talk for Dearly Disillusioned
Meet the artists and discover their creative processes and inspirations.
February 22 from 1-3pm
McNichols Civic Center, 3rd Floor Gallery
144 W Colfax Avenue
Denver, CO 80202
Dearly Disillusioned
I am honored to participate in the group exhibition “Dearly Disillusioned” with the Pink Progression collective at McNichols Civic Center where I will show my colored pencil drawing “Fat, Femme and Fierce.”
“Dearly Disillusioned” is a boundary-pushing exhibit coinciding with the centennial of women's suffrage and the fourth annual Womxn's March. In this exhibit, four local collectives come together with unique and compelling perspectives on gender identity, protest, and equality. Curators and artists collaborate to explore new intersections of historical and contemporary narratives that inspire change in our community.
Pink Progression: Coalesce incorporates a fusion of narratives through collaborative artwork. This collective process utilizes the power of networks to inspire social change influenced by over a century of suffrage movements. Themes of inclusivity, equality, and gender identity are interwoven into mixed media approaches. These works emphasize the collective issues that confront us and the transformational ways of finding common ground.
Opening Reception: January 18 from 5-8pm
On Display: January 18 – April 5, 2020
McNichols Civic Center, 3rd Floor Gallery
144 W Colfax Avenue
Denver, CO 80202
No Show
I am excited to announce that my colored pencil drawing “Lace” will be on display at Bitfactory in the group exhibition “No Show.”
Bill Thomson of Bitfactory Gallery decided to create an early-year splash by curating a show featuring Colorado-based artists whose work he enjoys and admires.
Opening Reception: January 17 from 6 to 9pm
On Display: January 17-March 12, 2020
Bitfactory
851 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Us
Two of my colored pencil drawings will be on display at Bitfactory in the group exhibition “Us.”
LGBTQ+ artists have been, and always will be active in the art world but are underrepresented in galleries and exhibits. In keeping with Bitfactory Gallery’s goal to showcase emerging artists, they proudly present Us, an art exhibit by Denver local queer artists. While the show is comprised entirely of artists that identify as something other than straight, the intention is not to further segregate and separate one community from another. Us is intended to demonstrate that, regardless of the pronoun one uses, art enriches all our lives..
Opening Reception: Friday, October 18 from 6-9pm
On Display: October 18-November 17, 2019
Bitfactory
851 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Figuratively Speaking
I am showing new drawings at Art Gym Denver’s Common Space Gallery in the exhibition “Figuratively Speaking.”
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 10 from 5-8pm
On Display: October 10-November 1, 2019
Art Gym Denver
1460 Leyden Street
Denver, CO 80220
Altar’d Continuum: Resistance and Empowerment
I was invited to create an altar that incorporates my drawings in “Altar’d Continuum: Resistance and Empowerment” at Museo De Las Americas. In addition I will perform in DRAG during the First Friday Art Walk.
Guest curated by Danielle N. Cunningham and Mary Grace Bernard, this exhibition emphasizes the altar as both a physical and non-physical space for personalized ritual exchange between humans and the divine. By pairing contemporary artists alongside religious ofrendas, retablos, and other iconography from the museum's collections, the exhibition illustrates the altar's inherent transcendence of time and space. These new altars reject any singular context, operating as platforms of resistance through which altar-makers reinterpret traditional practices and reclaim power from mainstream institutions.
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 12 from 6-9pm
Artist Talk: Tuesday, September 17 from 6-8pm
DRAG Performance: First Friday, October 4 at 7pm
On Display: September 12, 2019-February 1, 2020
Museo De Las Americas
861 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Messages from the Galactic Flare
I’m excited to participate with Denver’s PlatteForum and their summer ArtLab internship project, “Messages from the Galactic Flare,” an engaging, thought provoking, and immersive live drag performance focused on sex education and breaking societal stereotypes that often surround them. The show will be performed once at the 19th annual, Underground Music Showcase ( UMS ) on Saturday, July 27th, 2019 on the Odyssey Stage at 1:00 PM.
Amor es Amor: Celebrating LGBTQ in Chicanisma/o
Three of my colored pencil drawings will be on display at CHAC Gallery in the group exhibition “Amor es Amor.”
In a first-of-its-kind exhibition, CHAC is celebrating the LGBTQ within Chicanisma/o. At a time when many messages are focused on what separates us, Amor es Amor is a bold step in sharing what we have in common.
Without ignoring historical friction between the two communities, the exhibition acknowledges the many similar experiences endured by Chicana/o and LGBTQ people. Defined by a history where oppression and violence led to a lack of visibility, both celebrate their strength in community, self-reliance, and family; and capacity for love through vibrant visual art, writing, music and dance.
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7 from 5-10pm
On Display: June 7-July 26, 2019
CHAC Gallery
222 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, CO 80204
Gallery Hours:
Wednesday-Saturday 10am-4pm
Stories
My colored pencil drawing “Leather” is on display in Dab Art’s online exhibition “Stories.” Click here to view the show.
Despite the activism and efforts of LGBTQ+ organizations and movements, there are still many countries around the world that have not passed legislation at the federal level that includes full-fledged legal recognition for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Same sex couples still fight for basic entitlements such as marriage, adoption, inheritance, and insurance rights. Many countries continue to criminalize homosexuality or transgender identity and persecute LGBTQ+ people, sometimes violently.
Vulnerable to discrimination, acts of violence and hate crimes, these intolerances now affect the masses, not the minority. This exclusive online exhibition titled STORIES features the individual stories represented in visual art from the perspective of those apart of or involved in the LGBTQ+ community.
Cahoots
Three of my colored pencil drawings are on display at Art Gym Denver in the staff and member exhibition “Cahoots.”
Opening Reception: Thursday March 28 from 5-8pm
On Display: March 28-April 19, 2019
Art Gym Denver
1460 Leyden Street
Denver, CO 80220
OUT FRONT Magazine
I’m excited to share my interview with cultural anthropologist Emily Creek for Out Front Magazine. Click here to read the article.
Sexxxhibition
I am excited to announce Sexxxhibition, a show that myself and James Mullane co-curated at Art Gym Denver. The exhibition features artworks from 10 artists including myself, Corrina Espinosa, Esther Hernandez, James Mullane, Pansy Ass Ceramics, John Paradiso, Ryan Riedel, Peter Stevinson, John Tarantola, and The Women’s Art League.
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 31 from 5-8pm
On Display: January 31-February 22, 2019
Art Gym Denver
1460 Leyden Street
Denver, CO 80220
