SHOWING at Zip
Meet the Members of Zip 37
ZOA ACE came to Colorado to create art but her initial success sprang from the many trips back to her native Illinois. Those visits led to exhibit opportunities across the country including galleries in Chicago, Santa Fe, Seattle, San Francisco, and New York. Ace’s oil paintings involve elements from pop culture, art history and the animal kingdom as well as nostalgic memories. “I regard these paintings as visual poetry, and hope viewers are able to create their own interpretations and the narratives about the work,” she says. Her mixed media collages are a hit in Zip’s famous “Back Room: and more often than not, fellow Zippers are ringing her up to replenish the stock. Like her husband and fellow Zip member, Louis Recchia, Ace studied art at Western Illinois University and has work in the Denver Art Museum. She is one of Zip’s original members. Learn more about ZOA at
BRIAN CAVANAUGH received his BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio and his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. But it wasn’t until after school that his real education began. For 15 years Cavanaugh designed and built life-sized, walk-through re-creation environments fro the Shedd Aquarium and the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. While working full-time, he also showed his art in the co-ops and galleries of the Windy City. Influenced by the post-modern, found object, Duchampian realm, Cavanaugh describes his work as having a basis in science and nature, walking a fine line between art and artifact, but really dealing with issues of sculpture. “Think props for a movie,” he says. “But you don’t really know what the movie is all about!” Learn more about Brian at
Consider ceramist PAT CRONIN’S career a recipe. Start with a BFA in Printmaking from the University of Colorado. Add a Master’s in Art History from DU. Become administrator of an old school turned artists’ studios and gallery (the Grant Street Art Center, now known as the Denver Art Student’s League). Explore clay and become deft enough to start a ceramics studio in Five Points and teach at Red Rocks Community College. Stir well. Cronin’s 3-D works mix clay with found objects - usually rusted. “I like to work with things that are old - that are rusted and broken - and find them a new life,” says the Denver native. Animal and fish motifs speak to the artist’s vegetarian and animal defense sensibilities. Cronin also founded AHA, Artists Helping Artists, an “adhocracy” whose mission is to raise funds from local artists for local artists who are medically under - or uninsured Learn more about pat at
DANYL COOK grew up near a wildlife refuge in western New York and then became a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. It is the combination of those environments that find way into his expressionist drawings and paintings. Cook studied art at SUNY College, Buffalo and is presently working on an MFA at Regis University. The tug of urban life brought him to Denver, but those rural roots are always close at hand. “My soul must be nature’s making,” says Cook. “But I am always hopeful that there’s at least a little metropolitan snap to my work.” A former writer and photographer, Cook often adds stories to his works and website. His house series is a favorite with patrons. He has his own gallery space open for visits just up the street from Zip in the West Highlands neighborhood . Learn more about Danyl at
ALIX EVENDORFF was born with a crayon in her hand. Nowadays, she uses oil to create mystical, colorful abstract works. “My paintings are very personal to me, very emotional,” she says. “Yet every person who looks at them finds all different kinds of meanings.” The native New Yorker, who spent many years living in Europe, creates in a large warehouse in arvada and loves to work big: six-to-eight feet big in fact. Yet you can always find more manageably-sized works at Zip. She studied under the later, great Denver-based abstractionist, Dale Chisman, and her work is in numerous galleries around the nation. Evendorff is most recently proud of the appearance of two of her large-scale pieces in a national commercial for auto maker Audi. Learn more about Alix at
MARK FRIDAY’S fans often leave presents on his Denver porch. And what lovely gifts they are: scraps of thin-gauge metal; hunks of weathered wood; and anything with a gridular pattern. From these, Friday creates his “illuminated sculptures” - found-object combines made of “elements of fun” with light. His “adjustables” invite people to touch and move the varied parts. “The viewer has to be engaged in the work,” he says. After receiving his BA in Photography and Printmaking from Metro State, Friday’s separate works in those fields began to blend and move toward the sculptural. Friday is a professional art handler and installer and the go-to guy when Zippers need help hanging their shows. He teaches screen printing at the Art Student’s League and is an original member of Zip. H makes art in the Blue Silo Studios in the RiNo Art District Learn more about Mark at
KATIE HOFFMAN’s days always include time in her Wheat Ridge studio. “I don’t wait for inspiration, I treat this like a job,” she says, “but of course a job I love!” Hoffman received her BFA in Drawing from Metro State by may be better known for her mystical, dreamy oil paintings. Her interests lie in stories, myths, and allegories that explore the unconscious. Daily life finds its way into her work and even though the intent may be abstraction, the human - the figure - always comes through. Hoffman is an avid art carder - swapping small scale works with other artists. “No one equivocating over sales or bartering or rating whose work is better than whose. It’s very Dada and simply art for art’s sake,” she says. Learn more about Katie at
MEG INGRAHAM was first in her Grand Junction family to attend college (Western State/Gunnison) and the expectation was to study hard. “It’s difficult to be distracted when it’s 40 below zero,” she laughs. “So my focus went right into the art.” After receiving her BA, she became a Master Printer via the Tamarind Institute of the University of New Mexico. But soon enough, Ingraham turned to the intimacy of painting. Animal-themed oils and acrylics were borne of children demanding constant production from their creative mom. She also paints figures in order to keep her drawing chops and says her work is: “Wacko, because that seems friendly and inviting,” Ingraham lives in Thornton and creates in the Blue Silo in the RiNo Art District. Learn more about Meg at
MIKE KEENE has put his hand to most every medium imaginable in a career that has always been about the art. Born in Uruguay of American parents, Keene spent his youth there and in Brazil where a love for South American culture took hold. “There is a strong sense of passion and an ornate quality in the culture and it set a lot of my visual history,” he says. “All the things I saw - the art in the churches, the parades and celebrations - strongly influenced me.” Keene received his BGA in Graphic Design from the University of Texas and MS from the University of Northern Colorado in Sculpture and photography. In between he worked as a jewelry designer and then a high school art teacher before turning solely to his own creations in 2006. Today, Keene makes sculptural ceramics he describes as “narrative with a sense of absurd humor.” Learn more about Mike at
Most artists can speak to something in their past that influences them and KATHY KNAUS is not exception. She grew up working in the family butcher shop in Wheat Ridge, Colorado and you can see this influence in her work. Paintings filled with slabs of bloody meat mingle with sharp, foreboding hooks. Look close and those elements speak to a real understanding of subject matter. “Meat appears as sensuous and as beautiful to me as the human figure,” she says. Knaus received her BFA from the Rocky Mountain School of Art and Design and began working on a Master’s in Art Therapy at Naropa before realizing the latter was not where her heart lay. It lays splayed and splattered on the canvas and that is just where she like it. Knaus is the newest member of Zip. Learn more about Kathy at
New York native, KATE MCGUINNESS, was studying at the Philadelphia College of Art when a hippy boyfriend enticed her west and she never looked back. Once here, she completed studies at Metro State and UCD, receiving a BFA in Printmaking from the latter. Her love of printmaking began in high school. “I’ve always loved ink and I love silk screening. My father brought home a typographer’s book of fonts when I was younger and I was hooked!” Today, McGuinness can be found in her 11th and Acoma brick walk-up studio creating her signature monotypes of soft, color-filled abstracts. Her line of frolicking cut-out flowers, faces, and animals are a favorite in the Zip Back Room. And oh - that hippy boy - he’s now The Husband! Learn more about Kate at
BARBARA O’CONNELL is one educated Zipper. She loves to learn and enjoys playing off others - getting stimulation and feedback from fellow artists. Constant learning also feeds her interest in various mediums. “I have rolling favorites,” she says. “I find myself in moments of wanting to draw, and then moments of wanting to do photography And then I’m always seeking ways to combine them.” O’Connell has undergraduate degrees from Metro State in Art and Colorado State in Textiles and Clothing as well as an MFA from the University of Denver concentrating in drawing, Photography and Fiber. A Sterling native, O’Connell’s attraction to art is not so much the end product,” she smiles, “It’s a ritual to me and that’s what I find intriguing” Learn more about Barbara at
LOUIS RECCHIA’s work is in the Denver Art Museum, the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, the Loveland Art Museum and other respected venues. But that hasn’t changed his humble, nice-guy persona. Recchia’s recognizable found-object works have given way to a more recent focus on oil painting. The Chicago native, who received his BFA from Western Illinois University, will tell you he “reshuffles history” to his own “post, post-modern” liking. “So much of my life is lived vicariously through books and the media,” says Recchia. “it’s interesting to me how cartoons reflect our human emotions - the human condition.” His backward signature tells the viewer to imagine a mirror and see a sense of self in all art. Recchia is married to fellow Zipper, Zoa Ace. They live and create in Berthoud, CO. Learn more about Louis at
JEAN SMITH has a most singular style. Her clay florals are as much a part of her as her fun, vintage eyewear. Growing up outside Chicago, she received a BA in Art and Education at Milton College (Wisconsin). After years of teaching, she got a boos when a friend helped turn her living room into an art show which impressed a well-heeled gallerist into offering a show. Smith’s low-fire flowers and “trophy shrines” (ceramic containers capped with kitchy metal prize toppers) hark to a love affair with nostalgia and memorabilia. “I think of myself as a modified pop artist,” says Smith. My approach is bubbly and bigger than life and sometimes cartoonish. Using vintage or Americana-type themes is how I integrate what I like with ‘now time.” Smith has a brand new ceramics studio ready for visits in the Dry Ice Factory in the RiNo Art District. Learn more about Jean at
Meet Us
BARBARA O’CONNELL
OCTOBER 2 - 18, 2009
Friday Reception: OCTOBER 2, from 6 - 10 pm