Open January 25 – February 18.
Art Gym Gallery is excited to present “Throughlines“, this year’s Create Award residency exhibition. The show will combine the works of Alex Blom, Kade Sawyer, and Sarah Woodward, working in mixed media, printmaking, pottery, painting and installation. The works on display will demonstrate the ways in which their art practice has evolved throughout the Create Award residency. Please join us and the artist for a reception on Thursday January 25 from 6-9PM. Thank you to Ratio Beerworks for providing beer for this event!
The specific hardness of a church pew; the immediately recognizable smell of your family home’s basement; the anonymity of roaming a new town. These sharp sensory experiences, constantly absorbed in the places we inhabit, inform this blurry process of becoming. Artists Alex Blom, Kade Sawyer, and Sarah Woodward, each engage closely with the work of reconciling past selves with present growth and the spaces that have, or will, define such phases of our lives.
Alex Blom received his BA in Studio Art with Minors in Art History and Business Administration from the University of Denver in 2023 – where he was also a four-year NCAA Division I swimmer. His work has been included in exhibitions at the DU Vicki Myrhen Gallery, Memento Mori Gallery in Lakewood, CO, the Amarillo Museum of Art, the Sedona Arts Center, and the Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin, MO. He serves on the Media and Marketing Committee with the Colorado Month of Printmaking (Mo’Print). Originally hailing from Louisville, Kentucky, Alex Blom’s studio practice centers on how religious institutions and childhood development have impacted his queer identity. Blom’s interdisciplinary work amalgametes deeply personal color palettes, self image, art historical references, and LGBTQ cultural phenomenons to explore ideas that were deemed taboo in his childhood. By inserting himself into appropriated Catholic images and environments, he creates a cult of self whereby he can claim the symbology, characters, and motifs of the Catholic tradition.
Kade Sawyer (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Denver, Colorado. They graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Tulane University in 2022, specializing in the nexus of art/archaeology and the study of materiality. Their work is deeply informed by this perspective, often engaging with themes of identity, belonging, community, and memory. While they primarily work with intaglio printmaking methods and found objects, they often explore new mediums and ways of making depending on the project. Kate’s work has been shown throughout Denver and New Orleans. They hope to continue the exploration of the interconnectedness of art and archaeology after the conclusion of their residency at Art Gym.
Sarah Woodward is an interdisciplinary artist and designer. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a minor in French from the University of Connecticut in 2021. Sarah studied in Siena, Italy at the Siena Art Institute where she received her Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Fine Art in 2022. In 2023 Sarah was awarded the Create Award Residency at Art Gym Denver, completing her six month project titled Stanger Again. Sarah is currently a fellow with Design-Inquiry, an educational organization that explores pressing issues in design and culture. Her fellowship began with a week-long residency in London and focuses on a collaborative project exploring site-specificity, storytelling and generative modes of print. Sarah was awarded the emerging student artist award at the Mystic Outdoor Art Festival in 2020. She is currently a Group Programs Associate at the Denver Art Museum, facilitating art education opportunities for youth and adult groups. Sarah is also a member of the ceramics studio Community Clay Denver. Working in a variety of mediums, her work explores site-specificity, environment and deeply personal transformation through place.