Voelz Chandler: Works reflect vibrance of Colorado landscape

Published January 20, 2006 at midnight

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Tracy Felix uses the Colorado landscape as a springboard, filtering the reality of this place through a personal vision. He sees mountains in many colors, trees in the thousands, and clouds that are like giant white planks swirling through the pure blue sky.

He is among those Colorado artists who take the word landscape and made it contemporary yet timeless, of today yet part of the state's hearty modernist tradition.

With a new body of work at William Havu Gallery, Felix serves as anchor to a show on the landscape, in turn interpreted in its own way.

There are his paintings, which are growing increasingly stylized and reliant on the importance of strong planes and grayed colors; sculptural ceramics by Margaret Haydon, who finds inspiration in the boat but here has added some land forms as elements (as well as a taut figural piece); and drawings by Michael Burrows, who in graphite on paper creates scenes of nature that are highly realistic, but that also rely on the viewer's own impressions to define texture and perspective. On the mezzanine is a handful of large, highly glazed paintings of the land under stormy skies, by Jeff Aeling.

Felix, who moved to Lakewood from Manitou Springs in early 2004, hails from the San Luis Valley. (Sushe Felix, his wife, also is an accomplished artist and will show her work at Havu next month.)

His prodigious knowledge of 20th-century Colorado art, including the stand-out work made by those associated with the Broadmoor Academy and Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, is augmented by his record as guest curator of various exhibitions (including, in July, "Colorado Modernism: 1930 – 1970" at Foothills Art Center).

From this background, and from the state's own over-the-top look, Felix has created a signature style. But change is apparent. Several paintings are inspired by well-known topography, from The Sangre de Cristos to Red Rocks Amphitheatre (a large maquette for a competition the city held a few years ago to place Red Rocks-themed work in the new visitors center there) to The Garden of the Gods.

But in other new pieces, Felix strips everything down, relying on shape and shadow to tell the story. In works such as Cubic Landscape and Land Rhythms, he accentuates the mix of slab and lyricism that shapes his clouds, and removes or mutes the forests to show denuded mountains in taupe and blue, teal and olive green.

Anyone who has watched the weather reinvent itself or the hues of mountains change by time of day or season can appreciate Felix's translation of something we may take for granted into stunning views of a state's bounty.

LAST CALL: The Museo de las Americas continues to explore contemporary artwork that opens new vistas to viewers in the region. And after years of writing about its financial travails, it is refreshing to be back to concentrating on what is on the walls, rather than whether the walls are going to collapse around the place.

For one thing, director Patty Ortiz has now been in place for more than a year, and recently announced the addition of Gilbert Barrera to the staff, after solid service as director of + Gallery.

For another, the show now on view through Sunday, is a striking example of why the Museo can play such a key role in the art scene here. The title - "Planet Colombia: Deconstructing Stereotypes" - pretty much says it all. (Here's hoping the same holds true of the next Museo show, "Never Leaving Aztlan.")

The artists involved, from Colombia and the United States, take various tacks in terms of addressing Colombia's reputation, in terms of how they address legal and political problems, and cultural and personal influences. Narcoterrorism is certainly part of the mix in "Planet Colombia," through the work of Rafael Fajardo and Nadin Ospina.

Fajardo, who teaches electronic media art and design at the University of Denver, here shows a video projection (Ceci n'est pas Juan, attempting to "liberate" the Juan Valdez coffee logo from a life of servitude) as well as computer games inspired by the mystique and reality of drugs. Instructions for Fifa! Fo! Fum include the explanation that Juan wants help from a certain drug lord, who follows the motto "plata or plomo" (silver or lead) in operating his business. Another chapter in the game implores players to "help Juan eradicate the poppies!" They are sardonic explorations of both technology and society.

Ospina, meanwhile, uses photographs of pretend Lego figures in various outfits and settings to act out political and social situations. These digital images - including a faul National Geographic cover - hide a serious message behind playful portraits.

In another direction, Ana Mercedes Hoyos shows lush oil paintings that showcase the figure, though she also is represented by a fine, large-scale still life of a bright, bright bowl of fruit. Heat rises off her paintings and helps inform the exhibition with a full range of stylistic approaches.

The Museo is at 861 Santa Fe Drive; information: 303-571-4401.

IN THE NEWS: The State Historical Fund, which is supported by tax proceeds from limited stakes gambling, is offering workshops across the state that will feature grant application advisers from the fund and National and State Register historians from the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.

The programs begin Monday in Fort Collins, then move to Pueblo, Limon, Grand Junction and Alamosa, and end in Denver, at 10 a.m. Feb. 8 at the Sherman Events Center. The fund's next grant application deadline is April 3. For information or to register: 303-866-2825, or www.coloradohistory.org.

Tracy Felix, Margaret Haydon and Michael Burrows

• What: New paintings, ceramic sculpture and drawings, with paintings by Jeff Aeling on the mezzanine

• Where and when: William Havu Gallery, 1040 Cherokee St.; through Feb. 11

• Information: 303-893-2360

Mary Voelz Chandler is the art and architecture critic. chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2677.

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