I belong in a museum: Colorado Women Artist Museum Members Exhibition, Part 1

D’art Gallery East

900 Santa Fe Drive, Denver CO 80204

June 6-30, 2024

Admission: free

Review by Maggie Sava

According to Artnet’s reporting on the 2022 Burns Halperin Report, “only 11 percent of acquisitions and 14.9 percent of exhibitions, at 31 U.S. museums between 2008 and 2020, were of work by female-identifying artists.” [1] Those numbers have not shifted much since the early interventions of The Guerilla Girls, including their famous 1989 Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into The Met. Museum? poster, which noted that only 5% of artists in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s modern art section at that time were women. [2]

An installation view of *I belong in a museum: Colorado Women Artist Museum Members Exhibition, Part 1* at D’art Gallery. Image by Maggie Sava.

The artivism of the Guerilla Girls is one of many inspirations for Carrie MaKenna, founder and president of the Colorado Women’s Art Museum. And instead of waiting for the existing institutions to make nominal changes, MaKenna, the museum’s board, and its members are taking matters into their own hands by creating a space for and by—as the organization’s name suggests—Colorado women artists.

Carrie MaKenna, *Dazzling Veins Crackle With Life: Atmospheric Conditions*, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 42 x 2 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

The vision for the museum stemmed out of conversations MaKenna had with fellow artists and collectors in which they realized:

“Some of the women artists that we've known and loved for many years here in Colorado have started to die, pass away, and we were feeling distressed about what was going to happen to their significant bodies of work…So we started talking about what we need, and the thing we came up with is that we need a museum, specifically for Colorado women artists.” [3]

Naomi Salzman, *Remembering Martha*, acrylic on canvas, triptych: 36 x 10 x 1.5 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

Using a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation that she inherited from her mother, Ruth Brunskill Greiner, who was an artist and collector in her own right, MaKenna started the Colorado Women’s Museum, “to elevate, encourage, and exhibit Colorado Women Visual Artists.” [4] As she shares, what they are doing is unique: while there is the National Museum of Women’s Art in Washington D.C., you cannot find state-based museums dedicated to uplifting local women artists when searching online. Citing Colorado’s history of women forging their own path through patriarchal systems, MaKenna says that the museum team and its members “are just standing on the history of women doing it for themselves here in this state.” [5]

Annette Coleman, *Glacier*, stained glass mosaic, 12 x 12 x 2 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

I belong in a museum: Colorado Women Artist Museum Members Exhibition, Part 1, currently on show in D’art Gallery East, is the museum’s third exhibition since its formation in August of 2023. Curated by MaKenna, Rebecca Gabriel, and Carlene Frances, the exhibition features work by over 20 artist members of the museum ranging in medium, style, and theme. The show’s purpose is multifaceted: to thank the members for their ongoing support of the museum by providing an opportunity to show their art; to raise awareness about the museum and its current campaign to raise enough funds to purchase a building to house its operations; and to showcase the breadth of women artists working throughout the state.

Lyndy Bush, *New Mexico Night Drive*, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 x 2 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

Lyndy Bush’s New Mexico Night Drive provides the show’s first main focal point. Through the use of chiaroscuro, Bush highlights a lone building partially obscured by the dark of the night, illuminated by a singular streetlight. The canvas is sparse yet evocative. The suggestion of the vast desert hidden by the deep midnight blue and broken only by the contrast of this nondescript structure creates an eerie, liminal space familiar to those who have found themselves traveling through unfamiliar, scattered towns late at night.

A view of the works in *I belong in a museum: Colorado Women Artist Museum Members Exhibition, Part 1* at D’art Gallery. Image by Maggie Sava.

Following Bush’s painting is a series of abstract pieces that pull in warmer palettes, offsetting her nearly monochromatic landscape. The curatorial variation represents what MaKenna refers to as “a kind of color story…,” composed from the works chosen from an open call to the gallery’s members who have financially supported the museum for the past year. [6]

Bernadette Youngquist, *Sunburst at Dawn*, acrylic on wrapped canvas, 18 x 18 x 1.5 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

The curators worked within a specific range of sizes and scales in order to best fit the smaller space of D’art Gallery East, but looking around the room you can see how the play of color serves as a way to disrupt the potential for too much uniformity. Bernadette Youngquist’s Sunburst at Dawn, an abstract composition of soft red, orange, and purple shapes that mirror the form of cells under a microscope, helps punctuate the color story and invites the viewer’s eye further into the gallery space.

Rebecca Gabriel, *Sarah*, egg tempera and oil on canvas, 12 x 16 x 1 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

Another main visual draw of the gallery is what MaKenna refers to as “the shrine”—a corner of stylistically and thematically compatible works. Sitting in the corner on the back wall, opposite New Mexico Night Drive, is Rebecca Gabriel’s Sarah, a canvas that also employs a dramatic style reminiscent of Renaissance-era chiaroscuro. The model looks off to the side with her lips slightly parted, as if lost in thought. She only wears a blue headband, giving the image a sense of timelessness. Where is she looking off to? What is she thinking about? As much as viewers are drawn to her inner world through her pensive expression, we are ultimately left out.

Anne Emmons, *Mother Child Triptych III*, egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed board, 14 x 10 x 2.5 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

Sharing the “shrine” corner is Anne Emmons’s Mother Child Triptych III. Like Gabriel, Emmons uses the centuries-old medium of egg tempera and gold leaf that, paired with the composition and stylistic approach, evoke Byzantine icons. Emmons plays off of the tradition of depicting the religious scene of Madonna and child by painting a mother holding a baby. While they lack the golden halos indicative of sainthood, they become central and elevated subjects.

Both Sarah and Mother Child Triptych III demonstrate an interest not only in highlighting the technical skill and quality of work by local women artists, but also in exploring how women are captured as subjects of art. In both instances, the artists take what might be considered mundane moments, emotions, and relationships and emphasize them as being visually and thematically significant.

Works by Lisa Blidar, Susan M. Gibbons, and Pamela Neyman in *I belong in a museum: Colorado Women Artist Museum Members Exhibition, Part 1* at D’art Gallery. Image by Maggie Sava.

With the exception of one photograph, the far left wall of the gallery is dedicated to abstract works and earthy tones, including Carlene Frances’s Conceal and Reveal P3. The dynamic and textured work with shades of bright blue, tan, olive, and black resembles mosaiced reflections on the surface of water or the pattern of a geological sample.

Carlene Frances, *Conceal and Reveal P3*, acrylic on panel, 24 x 24 x 2 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

This panel is part of a series in which Frances layers and then deconstructs paint to create the effect of morphing shapes, which, as she explains, are “a metaphor for women who slowly reveal with age and experience who they are in spite of the invisible forces that dictate societies’ norms and acceptance of women’s behavior.” [7] Like the “shrine” paintings, Frances’s archeological-esque process explores representations of women’s experiences, adding in the physical intervention of force and time to convey complex transformations.

Johanna Morrell, *Serendipity Pool Party*, acrylic and ink on plexiglas and birchwood, 24 x 9 x 2.5 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

While the focus of this show is gratitude to those members who have provided ongoing monetary support for the museum, it is also part of the organization’s ongoing campaign to raise the funds needed to purchase a permanent home so that MaKenna and the museum team can realize their vision of becoming a collecting and exhibiting museum. Their current goal is to find a location in the City and County of Denver for their headquarters, but they also want to ensure they are able to do the outreach needed to support all areas of the state, not just the Denver Metro area.

Judy Doherty, *Wings and Whorls*, mixed media on wood panel, 16 x 20 x 2 inches. Image by Maggie Sava.

Despite not yet having a place to call home, MaKenna feels like the museum has already made great strides in showcasing the work of Colorado women artists. With the three exhibitions that have taken place over the past year, they have shown over 200 artists. MaKenna’s hope with I belong in a museum is that the audience thinks, “Look at all of this amazing artwork by the women in the state that I live in. How can I be part of that?” [8]

An installation view of the exhibition *I belong in a museum: Colorado Women Artist Museum Members Exhibition, Part 1* at D’art Gallery. Image by Maggie Sava.

If you are interested in learning more about the show, the artists, or the museum, D’art Gallery will be hosting a Meet the Artists event on Thursday, June 20, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. and an Artist Appreciation Night on Friday, June 21, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. [9] Part two of I belong in a museum will open in August of this year, just in time for the museum’s first anniversary.

Maggie Sava (she/her) is a writer based in Denver, Colorado. She holds a bachelor’s degree in art history and English, creative writing from the University of Denver and a master’s degree in contemporary art theory from Goldsmiths, University of London.

[1] Julia Halperin and Charlotte Burns, “Exactly How Underrepresented Are Women and Black American Artists in the Art World? Read the Full Data Rundown Here,” Artnet, December 13, 2022, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/full-data-rundown-burns-halperin-report-2227460.

[2] Guerrilla Girls, “Naked through the Ages,” accessed June 14, 2024, https://www.guerrillagirls.com/naked-through-the-ages-projects.

[3] From my conversation with Carrie MaKenna, June 10, 2024.

[4] “Colorado Women’s Art Museum,” accessed June 14, 2024, https://cwamus.org/.

[5] From my conversation with MaKenna, June 10, 2024.

[6] From my conversation with MaKenna, June 10, 2024.

[7] Carlene Frances, Artist’s Statement.

[8] From my conversation with MaKenna, June 10, 2024.

[9] More exhibition and program information is available on D’art Gallery’s website: https://dartgallery.org/show-calendar/i-belong-in-a-museum.