July 18 – August 15, 2021
Josef Conniff, Maria Staffeld, Ben Sierkierski, Jack Estensoro, Maddison Tubbs, Hudson Hatfield, Javier Flores, Sarah Palmieri, Steven Frost, Joey Cocciardi, Robert L Martin, Alli Lemon, Rebecca Reeve, Sean Hudson, Kate James, Erin McCalister, Paul Keefe, Chinn Wang, Jess Langley, Tya Anthony, Shannon Kelly, Daniel Trejo, Kate Casanova, Gregory Santos, Tiffany Matheson, Jen Hitchings, Jaime Carrejo, Sidney Masuga
Featuring many friends of Friend of a Friend (or friends of friends, and possibly friends of friends of friends) School’s Out brings together the largest group of artists FOAF has showcased to date.
The transition back to mask-less life has reinvigorated many. Though artistic pursuits continued through the pandemic, many projects were not publicly displayed. Ideas were conceived but not fully realized. More importantly, the past year has left many yearning for a core pillar of any artistic community: the opening reception. School’s Out is a celebration of the reinstitution of these community gatherings that hot vax summer has brought upon us. The purpose of School’s Out is shameless: to bring some humans we like and their incredible work together, in person, simply because we can.
About the Artists
Joseph Coniff is an artist who lives and works in Denver. He has an MFA from the University of Delaware, Newark and a BFA from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. Coniff is also the co-editor of The Programme, an annual publication featuring artist and curatorial interviews. He has completed residencies and guest lectures in Wassaic, NY; Santa Fe NM; Berlin, Germany; and at Black Cube, Denver, CO. Coniff’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in Denver, Marfa, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Berlin and is in numerous public, business and private collections nationally and internationally.
María Staffeld is a multidisciplinary Dominican artist whose work explores identity and the psychological effects of color and form interactions. Staffeld recently had a solo exhibition at Dateline and was included in the group exhibition “You’re Just Okay Too” at Yes Ma’am Projects. She is pursuing her BFA from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design.
Ben Siekierski is a Philadelphia based artist who graduated with a BFA from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. He has shown at RedLine Denver, Binder Projects (Memphis), Coup de Fourche (Brussels) and has completed a residency at Paradise Air in Matsudo, Japan.
Theresa Daddezio is a New York based artist and curator who is represented by DC Moore Gallery. She received her MFA from Hunter College and a BFA at Purchase College. Daddezio has shown at Pentimenti (Philadelphia), Transmitter (New York) and was recently named a Sharpe Walentas Studio Program awardee.
Jack Estenssoro is a neo-surrealist painter whose works deal with the complexity of ordinary, contemporary life. Often you can find references to memes and other pop culture phenomena in his work. He has shown at Dateline (Denver), The Art Gym (Denver), and Maybe Sunday (Chicago). Estenssoro lives and works in Denver, Colorado
Madison Tubbs is a Denver based painter who earned her BFA from The University of Kansas. She has also worked at Anderson Ranch in Aspen, CO as a marketing content creator.
Javier Flores is a painter and printmaker who was born in Denver, Co. He is an affiliate faculty at the Metropolitan State University of Denver and a Teaching Artist at Access Gallery. He received an MFA from Texas A&M Corpus Christi and a BFA from Metro State.
Sarah Palmeri is a Denver-based artist who explores the functionality of abstraction through a feminine, queer and contemporary perspective and aims to offer a meditative space to practice interacting with self-awareness. She is currently a resident artist at Redline Contemporary Art Center in Denver. In 2021, she and her husband Josh opened Two Palm Studio, a joint venture in public art installation.
Joey Cocciardi is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, sculpture and photographic documentation. He received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2012 and has shown in New York, Los Angeles, and Denver. He splits his time living between Los Angeles and the Hudson Valley.
Rebecca Reeve was born in London, England and received her Masters in Visual Arts from the University of South Wales. Her photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally including La Biennale de Montreal, (Canada), Freies Museum, Berlin, (Germany), Museum of Latin American Art, (Buenos Aires), EFA Project Space, (NYC) and the Masur Museum of Art, (Louisiana).
Sean Hudson is an Albuquerque, NM based artist who received his MFA from the University of New Mexico and a BFA from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. He has exhibited at Richard Levy Gallery (NM), Leisure Gallery (Denver – RIP), The Valley (Taos). He also teaches at the University of New Mexico.
Colleen Wallace was born in Lancaster, PA, the traditional territory of the Susquehannock. She received her BFA from Alfred University, and has been both a victim and perpetrator of “ghosting.”
Jen Hitchings is a New York based artist and owner of Studio Associate, an art consulting agency that aims to foster collaboration amongst various art world participants. She has exhibited at Pierogi (New York), Hudson Valley Community College (Troy), and has completed residencies at DNA in Provincetown and the Vermont Studio Center.
Daniel Alejandro Trejo was born in Stockton, CA and is an emerging Latinx artist working in ceramic sculpture. He received his BA in Art Studio and Art History from University of California, Davis. Trejo has participated in group shows at venues in Los Angeles, Austin, and Chicago and co-organized and curated Sacramento Zine Fest under Unibrow Collective, a Sacramento based collaborative.
Jess Langley is a multimedia artist. She has exhibited her work internationally, and has been an artist-in-residence in numerous programs including Skaftfell Center of Visual Art in Iceland, Askeaton Contemporary Art in Ireland, the SPACES World Artist Program in Cleveland, and the Digital Painting Atelier at OCAD-U in Toronto. She was a recipient of the J. William Fulbright Scholarship for research in Iceland, and earned her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2008.
Paul Keefe is a Colorado based artist who holds an MFA from The University of Kansas and a BFA from Colorado State University. He has had solo exhibitions at Lane Meyer Projects (Denver) and Haw Contemporary (Kansas City). He is currently the studio coordinator for painting and printmaking at Anderson Ranch Arts Center.
Robert Martin is a Colorado based multimedia artist embracing what he calls a “ruralcore” aesthetic. Martin has exhibited at the Galleries of Contemporary Art in Colorado Springs, the Rural Midwest Artists Cooperative in Illinois, The Valley in Taos New Mexico, The Wausau Center for the Visual Arts in Wisconsin, Sublimation Gallery in NYC and other national locations. In 2021 he received his MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder’s MFA program.
Steven Frost is a multidisciplinary artist based in Colorado. His artwork evokes specific narratives and stories, referencing aspects of his personal and family history, and the history of the LGBTQIA+ people, among other topics. Frost has exhibited at the University of Colorado Boulder Art Museum; Basement Projects in California; 350 E 3rd/ ArtX in California; Robert Bills Contemporary, in Illinois; Coop Gallery in Tennessee, as well as locally at Union Hall Gallery, the Center for Visual Arts and Alto Gallery among others. Frost is a recipient of the Lenore G. Tawney Fellowship and the Luminarts Cultural Foundation Fellowship. He holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently on faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Alli Lemon is a Memphis-born, Colorado-based artist. She holds a BFA in Arts Practices from the University of Memphis and was fellow at the Yale School of Art at Norfolk in 2015. Her curatorial efforts began in 2016 as an intern at The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art in Memphis, TN. From 2017-2018, she helped found, design, and manage Memphis art-space The Rowdy Department which includes studio-spaces and a gallery. Since moving to Colorado, she founded maybeblue, a residential gallery space, housed in her garage and carport which features Colorado artists with an emphasis on experimental film. In 2021 Lemon received her MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Chinn Wang’s work employs coded visual languages and symbolic iconography to examine, problematize, and humorize the subjective nature of personal narrative and history. Chinn was a resident artist at RedLine Denver from 2012-2014, and is a 2013 Santo Foundation Individual Artist Grant recipient. She was also an invited artist in the inaugural year of the Community Supported Art Colorado program (CSArt). Chinn’s work has been shown nationally and internationally in group exhibitions, and she recently had a solo exhibition at The Print Center in Philadelphia, PA that resulted in a front cover feature in Art in Print Journal.Wang earned her MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a dual BA in Art Practice and Art History from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a Teaching Associate Professor at the University of Denver and lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Tya Alisa Anthony, a Colorado based interdisciplinary artist and curator, explores themes of social justice, human rights and identity. Anthony incorporates photography, collage, and sculpture to give a voice to narratives of often marginalized people as well as the social, economic, and natural environments that surround them. She has exhibited locally at the Denver Art Museum, Leon Gallery, Alto Gallery, Pace Gallery, Redline Contemporary Art Center, and the Boulder museum of Contemporary Art among other venues. She also serves on the boards of several arts organizations, including Tiltwest and Leon Gallery. Anthony additionally is the Executive Director and Founder of Mahogany Vu Contemporary Art, an online thriving gallery for BIPOC. She received her BFA from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design.
Kate Casanova is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the posthuman through sculpture and video. Casanova has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as the Barbican Centre (London), Le Poisson Rouge (New York), and the Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis). She was a featured artist in Doug Aitken’s exhibition, “Station to Station,” which toured the nation by train in 2013. She is represented by the Kolman & Pryor Gallery (Minneapolis). She received an MFA from the University of Minnesota in 2013 and a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design in 2008. She is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Denver.
Gregory Santos is a Denver abstract artist and professional printer specializing in lithography and screen printing. Gregory is currently the Printmaking Director at Art Gym Denver and was the the Chair of Mo’Print from 2016-2020. Gregory created Mixed Grit in January 2019. Through this project he’s printed crayonstone lithographs for: Craig Zammiello, Ali Norman, Ash Armenta, Todd Herzberg, Jessi Hardesty, Annalise Gratovich, Reinaldo Gil Zambrano, Sage Perrott, Bryn Perrott, Tanja Softić, Rachel Shelton, and Opal DeRuvo. He completed the Printer Training Program at the Tamarind Institute for lithography, holds a MA degree from New York University as well as a BFA degree from Syracuse University.
Tiffany Matheson is a mixed and multimedia artist native to and working in Denver, CO who specializes in sculpture, installation, performance and public art. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology with Studies in Sculpture from CU Denver. She has exhibited locally at Pirate Contemporary Art, Alto Gallery, the McNichols Building, The Museum of Outdoor Arts, Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum, among others. Matheson has completed several artist residencies at the Denver Children’s Museum and the Museum of Outdoor Arts.
Jaime Carrejo is a Denver multi-discipline artist and his projects involve painting, sculpture, video, and immersive installations that use layered materials such as mirrors, rusting oxidation paint, and colorful vinyl. He received his B.F.A from the University of Texas El Paso in 2001 and M.F.A. from the University of South Florida in 2007. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Denver Art Museum, the University of the Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, the Mahmoud Darwish Museum, Palestine, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing among other venues.
John Lake is an artist and curator living and working in Denver, Colorado whose practice draws from the everyday, urban society, and the use of expanded photography and book making. Lake is currently part of the faculty at the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley and holds an MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. He has exhibited locally at the Denver Art Museum, Art Gym Denver, Platteforum, Redline Contemporary Art Center, where he was also a resident artist and in New York at venues such as the Lobby and the 1975 Gallery.
For the last 10 years Hudson Hatfield has been splitting his time between Philadelphia and Colorado Springs. He makes good art for other people and will give you a reasonable price if you need your lawn mowed. His studio practice is typically an extension of his spiritual practice.
Shannon Kelly is a Denver based film-maker and photographer. He has shown at Pirate Contemporary and completed a residency at Friend of a Friend in 2021.
Sidney Masuga is a Denver based painter who received a BFA from Emily Carr University in Vancouver, BC. She has shown at Redline Contemporary and has been featured on The Hairpin and BOOOOOM.
Erin McAllister explores connectivity and interpersonal relationships through color, line, tension, layers, shape and negative space. She meticulously arranges fabric scraps that have no remaining use or value and mends them to form new visual purpose or meaning.
Kate James is an artist who focuses on sculpture, video, and performance. She received a BFA from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in 2021 and currently lives in Texas. She explores social topics like intimacy, consent, boundaries, and violence.
Patrick Martin is a Denver based photographer who recently opened a studio in the Evans School where he has set up a portrait studio. He is a retired physician who was once deemed “The King of Syphilis.”