Come join this informal critique moderated by artist and curator Gretchen Marie Schaefer, alongside Art Gym staff on Wednesday June 28 from 6-9PM. Critiques are free and open to the public. Bring some pieces of work to have critiqued by the group, or join in on the discussion even if you don’t have work share. Beer and light snacks will be served!

Maximum of 10 participants to receive feedback. If you would like to join the conversation without sharing work, no need to RSVP – Just show up!

Gretchen Marie Schaefer makes sculptures, drawings, photos, videos, and performances to poetically interpret the complexities of being alive at this time, in this place. She frequently thinks about how perception and misperception function in contemporary life, shaping our knowledge of the world, each other, and ourselves. And considering the limitations of looking and the distortions of the mind, she is inclined to question the reliability of vision. Her work is a venue for that questioning.

Schaefer’s recent projects place rocks in contexts of deception, illusion, ambiguity, and contradiction as ways of thinking about the multifaceted problems of seeing. As materially reliable objects, rocks allow her to exploit our trust in observation. She thwarts our confidence in a rock’s physical qualities by making rocks do improbable things like levitate and lighten. She uses this simple yet dynamic object to address the slipperiness of perception across many different experiences – specifically being an observed female body, the somatic impacts of optical illusions, and invisible physical connections to the natural world.

Schaefer was born, raised, and currently lives and works in Denver, Colorado. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and Visual Arts from Regis University. She is a founding member of TANK Studios, LLC., and is a former board member of RedLine Contemporary Art Center and Tilt West, a non-profit dedicated to fostering critical dialogue and writing in art and culture. Her work has been exhibited at numerous locations including the Black Cube Nomadic Museum, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the Colorado University Boulder Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Since 2013 Schaefer has directed the visiting artist program at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design where she hosted Miranda July, Andrea Zittel, Dario Robleto, Sondra Perry, Paul Pfeiffer, Sara Cwynar, Judy Chicago, Kalup Linzy, Jacolby Satterwhite, Christine Sun Kim, and Michael Jones McKean among many others.