paintings

Plus Gallery's Newest Show with Denver's Wes Magyar & Robin Schaefer
by Lisa Gedgaudas

Plus Gallery opened a show on April 19th that features two of Denver’s beloved representational painters, Robin Schaefer and Wes Magyar. Both artists have a taste for high, visual enticement, detail, and perfection. The subject matter is usually blatant- a face, food, or flower, but each piece conceals complexities, and evoke multifaceted sensations.

Xi Zhang, Recent Paintings exhibit, opened at Rule Gallery last night, displaying an acrylic on canvas series. Originally from China, the now Denver-based artist balances the traditions of Taoist religion with the conditions of contemporary Western experience. The paintings depict masked faces, which give little clue to gender, social rank, or other cultural signifiers and are instead evocative in emotional articulation, primarily via the eyes. Zhang explores the paradoxes of universality versus individual solitude, spirituality versus material existence.