Faculty and Program Highlights

February 2 – March 18, 2023

GOCA, Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery
Ent Center for the Arts

The Galleries of Contemporary Art (GOCA) presents the return of the much-anticipated UCCS Visual Arts Faculty Triennial exhibition. For the first time since the pandemic, brand new artworks from distinguished faculty will be on view in the Marie Sharpe Walsh Gallery at the Ent Center for the Arts through March 18th, 2023. The artists, whose works have been recognized in galleries and museums across the globe, guide the next generation of creatives in the classroom as they continue to expand their own craft. Come check out the artistic practices informing future artists in Colorado Springs.

Featuring: Matt Barton, Corey Drieth, Marina Eckler, Rachel Guardiola, Nick Henning, Ben Kinsley, Nikki Pike, Stacy Platt, Claire Rau, and Clark Valentine

The Yard, a curatorial project by Assistant Professor Ben Kinsley and Jessica Langley was profiled in the article "Artists in Denver Invite You to Their Yards, Living Rooms, and Skating Rinks" in the online arts magazine Hyperallergic.

A review of Professor Matt Barton's installation "Community Forms" in DARIA Art Magazine.

"Community Forms is an outdoor installation on the TAXI Campus in Denver by the artist Matt Barton (b. 1975), created for the nonprofit, nomadic art museum Black Cube. In 2021, Barton received an 18-month artist fellowship with Black Cube to produce a site-specific work that expands audience engagement with contemporary art. To that end, Barton designed Community Forms as Black Cube’s first permanent site-specific artwork. [...]"

"In January 2021, Covid was causing universities all over the world to quickly adjust to a new paradigm of education. This paradigm was particularly difficult for art programs, where face-to-face interaction was seen as critical to many courses.

Ben Kinsley, at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs approached us with the idea that one of his courses could use Popwalk as a tool for teaching principles of site-based artwork, to help the students in his interdisciplinary Visual and Performing Arts course."

Downtown Colorado Springs has just gotten more colorful, thanks to the artistic touches of five UCCS students and graduates.

Spurred by the question “How can UCCS celebrate its presence in the heart of the city?”, students Madalyn Botkin, Tyler Haynie, Andy Kwiatkowski, David Ramires and alumnus Lee Haider ’20 were recently given the opportunity to design Colorado-themed coverings for five electrical boxes in the heart of downtown Colorado Springs.

The colorful designs are one swatch on a palette of initiatives bringing vitality to downtown. Made possible through collaboration with the Downtown Partnership of Colorado Springs, the project adds to efforts to incentivize walkability, attract new businesses and tourism and shape downtown neighborhood identities. [...]

Dozens of UCCS students submitted designs for the electrical boxes. The five winning designs were selected by a panel led by Nikki Pike, senior instructor of art at UCCS. Printing of the weatherproof wraps was made possible thanks to Colorado Springs-based community sponsors Nunn Construction, technology company Bluestaq and realtors Behr & Behr.

See photos in the Communique article liked below as well as a news feature on KOAA News5

FEMA and the RedLine Contemporary Art Center have selected a proposal from Associate Professor Matt Barton as part of a project to raise risk awareness and promote disaster risk reduction activities through art. This will be the first work created under the innovative public-private partnership.

Barton, Black Cube’s 2021 Artist Fellow, proposed an outdoor sculptural installation titled Community Forms. This concrete earthwork is designed for flood areas located within the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods north of Denver. This sculptural art intervention functions as both a visually compelling community space and an infrastructural support system that helps model stormwater mitigation. Barton’s sculpture will produce an inviting gathering place for recreation and creative play, while serving a utilitarian purpose.

UCCS student Niki (Nicole) Puigdevall has been hard at work over the past few months creating eleven life-size sculptures of aspen trees for the 10th annual student public sculpture project.

Her work, titled “Seasons Change, We Grow Together,” was installed on June 17, across the street from UCCS at the University Village Center. “It’s a really unique program and this year’s sculpture is a very ambitious scale,” says Matt Barton, associate professor and co-director of the visual art program.

Inspired by her love for public artwork and recent events shaping our society, Puigedevall wanted to create a space for people to connect and enjoy beautiful art. “The aspen trees are a metaphor for the ways we are bound as a society,” says Puigdevall. “Just like the aspen trees are all connected at the roots, we are connected at the roots, and in order to see a bigger change in the world, we all have to individually make the change.”

Two Brooklyn artists relocated to Colorado Springs, bringing their love of quirky exhibit spaces with them. Meet Jessica Langley and Ben Kinsley, who have turned the front yard of their home into a public exhibition space for local, regional, and national artists. Featuring Artwork By: Jerstin Crosby FASTWÜRMS David Grainger Riitta Ikonen Juliacks Laura Lappi Marsha Mack George P. Perez

If you’ve driven by the University Village Colorado shopping center on Nevada, you may have noticed colorful sculptures lining the avenue across from the Ent Center for the Arts. Each fall, UCCS students in the Visual and Performing Arts Department are invited to submit proposals for sculptural work to representatives from the University Village Colorado. Two student designs are selected to be fabricated as large scale permanent outdoor sculptures. This year’s winners are Deborah Schoen and Jennifer Marquez.

The two winning student designs are selected by Kevin Kratt, president of Kratt Commercial Properties, and his partners at the commercial real estate group. The students then work through the next phases of the design process and brainstorm possible fabrication plans with Kratt, fabricator Jodie Bliss, and Matt Barton, associate professor and co-director of the visual art program. Finally, the students work with Bliss in her fabrication studio to complete the final pieces.

On May 16, UCCS students unveiled their kinetic installation titled "Ascension" in the University Center. The installation is the fourth piece commissioned by Ent Credit Union for the University Center branch and developed by visual and performing arts students in Ben Kinsley’s spring 2019 Digital Art & Design course.

January 31 - May 12, 2019
GOCA, Ent Center for the Arts

The biannual UCCS Visual Art faculty exhibition celebrates and investigates the work of contemporary artists serving as educators at UCCS. GOCA has championed conceptually innovative projects in its exhibition spaces for the past 37 years, inviting artists from this region and beyond to manifest their visions in collaboration with our students, faculty and staff. For this exhibition, we invited our faculty to respond to a theme that is connected to the biannual POLLINATE festival the exhibition is part of – TIME.

Featuring: Abbey Hepner, Ben Kinsley, Marina Eckler, Nikki Pike, Claire Rau, Corey Drieth, Jeremy Click, Pauline Foss, Stacy Platt, Matt Barton, Nick Henning, Carol Dass, and Jessica Langley

Eight University of Colorado Colorado Springs faculty members will be featured at First Friday Gallery Talks as part of the university’s Galleries of Contemporary Art biannual visual art faculty exhibition, "New Horizon." Featuring Matt Barton, Corey Drieth, Marina Eckler, Nikki Pike, Pauline Foss, Abbey Hepner, Stacy Platt, and Claire Rau. November 4 & December 2, 2016.

A biannual exhibit by UCCS visual art faculty will open Oct. 7 at GOCA 121, the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art location at 121 South Tejon Street.

The "New Horizon" exhibit features artwork by Visual and Performing Arts Department members Matt Barton, associate professor, Corey Drieth, associate professor, Marina Eckler, instructor, Pauline Foss, senior instructor, Abbey Hepner, instructor, Nikki Pike, instructor, Stacy Platt, instructor, and Claire Rau, senior instructor.

The UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art will feature nine UCCS visual art faculty member artists in the downtown gallery, GOCA121, beginning Oct. 4.

The exhibit opens with a 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Oct. 4 reception at GOCA121, 121 S. Tejon. In this themed exhibit, nine UCCS Visual Art faculty member artists, Matt Barton, Valerie Brodar, Carol Dass, Corey Drieth, Marina Eckler, Pauline Foss, Olivia Lundberg, Claire Rau, and Erik Schubert, responded to the city-wide thematic CROSS-CREATIONS: gods & monsters project in drawing, photography, video installation, and mixed-media sculptural installation.