In Language Without Words, on view at the Denver Botanic Gardens (DBG) Freyer-Newman Center, Ash Eliza Williams’s stunning paintings and sculptures invite viewers to consider the varied nonverbal ways that nature uses to communicate. Both imaginative and scientifically grounded, Williams offers a surreal and animistic perspective that is visually wonderful, somewhat alien, and subtly spiritual. 

Addressing the hard reality of climate change, an inspiring, youth-led, group exhibition titled Seeds of Hope is on display at Downtown Aurora Visual Arts through November 18. Combining works from over sixty youths (ages 6 - 18) with works by adult artists Kelly Cox, Anna Kaye, Regan Rosburg, and Eileen Roscina, this multifaceted, interactive, educational, and science-focused exhibition tackles the complex theme with a dizzying array of art and information. 

Currently on view in the artist-run space of neü folk, Ways to Leave (Save) Earth is a group exhibition curated by Dani/elle Cunningham that invites viewers to ponder the bleak, multifaceted realities of current and future space travels. Like warp drives and wormholes, this strange and thoughtful exhibition is not without its conceptual and practical faults. However, its deep and personal Earthbound narratives do help shine a truthful, if unpleasant, light on what’s really going on above our heads.

Clyfford Still Museum presents Abstract Expressions, a terrace installation by composer Nathan Hall and Denver Botanic Gardens assistant curator and horticulturist Kevin Phillip Williams. Not since the museum’s opening in 2011 have the terraces been revamped and reimagined, so the change is a welcome one. The new installation invites viewers to enjoy the second-level outdoor spaces with a multisensory experience of soundscapes and regionally relevant gardens inspired by the life and art of abstract expressionist Clyfford Still.

Changing forms and colors call forth in our minds and hearts anything from personal truths to great mysteries. In a similar way, Evocation―the current exhibition on view at Walker Fine Art―presents selected works from six artists that invite introspection through the common themes of nature, landscape, and memory. It’s a well-curated show with a strong backbone of fine, representational painting from Matt Christie, Doug Haeussner, Peter Illig, and Virginia Steck, further enhanced by striking abstract work from Atticus Adams and Kim Ferrer.

For a few weeks in February, Understudy invites visitors to experience Dancing in the Diaspora, a solo exhibition of new works by Denver-based artist Autumn T. Thomas. Best known as a woodworker, Thomas branches out and fills the arts and culture incubator space with a combination of mobile, wall-mounted, and free-standing sculptures that act together with LED screens and digital projections. Inspired by her recent artist residency in Suriname and her aim to reveal the hidden soul of her pieces, Thomas finds new connections with her ancestors and challenges her own practice through works that are moving in more ways than one.