Denver’s Contemporary Art Gallery, in Art District on Santa Fe, Hosts “Transformations”, 3 Solo Exhibitions by Ashton Lacy Jones, Emily Oldak, & Vicky Smith

“Transformations” exhibition featuring three member artists Ashton Lacy Jones, Emily Oldak, and Vicky Smith, opens on Thursday, July 1, 2021 at D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive. The exhibition runs through Sunday, July 25, 2021.

As part of the “Sundays on Santa Fe” in the Art District on Santa Fe, D’art Gallery will be open for this special event, from 11 am to 4 pm on Sunday, July 25. Emily Oldak and Vicky Smith will host “Meet the Artists” from 11 am to 1 pm. Ashton Lacy Jones will be giving encaustic demonstrations during the afternoon.

“Transformations” Exhibition
The complementary work of Ashton Lacy Jones, Vicky Smith and Emily Oldak focuses on transformation as a process of noticing the world most people take for granted such as walls, rain and light. Walls are all around but does anyone take a look? Just like the rain that falls, does anyone stop to listen? And the illumination that lights everyone’s lives, does anyone stop to think how they are perceiving what they see? The exhibition encourages art appreciators to consider transformation as part of the art experience.

Walls – Solo Exhibition by Ashton Lacy Jones
Everyone around the world has been climbing walls and staring at them during the past year of COVID shutdown. Ashton Lacy Jones has been staring at walls but in a creative way. She became fascinated with why mankind felt the need to leave marks on walls; from handprints in caves to urban street tagging.

Are these individuals affirming humanity's existence; shouting to the world "I was here"? Are humans, like all animals marking territory or warning the rival street gang? Is someone declaring a love, perhaps lost, with a heart and initials scratched in the paint? Even something as simple as the outline of nail holes are the witness marks of what once was. Walls tell us their stories with their cracks, peeling paint, and layers of old advertisements torn off, white washed and then papered over once again.

The work in Ashton Lacy Jones’ exhibition are mixed media created with silk screened collage, encaustic, pan pastels, and oil paint. The transparency of the encaustic allows the viewer to see each work as a whole and to peek through to see the various layers.

Retired from the law, Ashton Lacy Jones has worked exclusively as an artist for the last ten years. Lacy has served on a local art nonprofit and as a volunteer at the Denver Art Museum. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe, NM. She creates in her Longmont studio, Boneyards Arts. Her work can be viewed at: https://www.ashtonlacyjonesart.com


“Seen and Unseen” - Solo Exhibition by Emily Oldak
Emily Oldak poses a question with her acrylic paintings, “What am I seeing, what am I not seeing”. With each brush stoke Emily explores the relationship between perception and personal experience. Her multilayered abstract paintings of vivid and ethereal passages of color are an invitation to see through the veil of the obvious and take a second look.

For Emily, each painting is an entry into uncharted territory. Derived from a deeply personal response to the world, her paintings reflect a lifelong fascination with changing perceptions and the nature of reality. Working primarily in acrylics to create multilayered abstracts, she begins by applying random strokes of color and line. Often tapping into things outside her awareness, images emerge and recede, adding depth for new images to appear. Traversing between flow and control, Emily paints until a sense of place is established. Refining from there, she looks to see how she can take the painting beyond the know and into the realm of other worldliness and possibility.

Emily Oldak earned a combined Fine Arts Degree from Carnegie-Mellon University and Adelphi University in New York. In 1991, she took a break from art to explore and teach the application of improvisational comedy as an empowerment and intervention tool for at-risk youth. After a twenty-five year career traveling the country to work directly with youth and train their providers, she returned to painting in 2016. Her work can be viewed at: https://www.emilyoldakartist.com

Rain – Solo Exhibition by Vicky Smith
Ceramicist Vicky Smith shares the restorative and transformative power of rain through her organic ceramic sculptures. Thinking about the events of 2020, there was, and still is, so much to process, so much to consider, so much to be concerned about, so much to grieve, and so much to celebrate. In the process of trying to make sense of it all, her thoughts instead turn to images of gentle, falling rain. Imagining the muffling sound of rain as it falls, considering the nourishment that rain can bring, she thinks of its’ cleansing, healing power.

Vicky Smith explores organic forms in clay. Her work creates a sense reflection through the use of light and shadow, movement and repetition. She hand-builds her shapes with coils, fires the pieces to various temperatures, then finishes them using a variety of surface treatments including slips, glazes, oils, and lustres.

Vicky has spent her career involved in the arts. She has taught art and ceramics to all ages in a variety of educational settings. Her work is in several collections and outdoor installations. She holds a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the University of Colorado and Rhode Island School of Design and is endlessly fascinated in the possibilities, challenges and rewards that working with clay has to offer. Her work can be viewed at: https://www.vickysmith-ceramics.com


Gallery Hours: Thursday Noon - 5pm, Friday Noon – 9 pm, Saturday Noon - 5 pm, Sunday 1 pm – 4 pm.