Can these artists reshape our concept of nature?

Nikki Pike is one of Colorado s busiest artists and easily one of its majority of intriguing and entertaining so it is not uncommon to encounter her objects in outdoor settings here Pike makes work from various materials and with different aims but she is best known for her oversized inhabitants sculptures created out of tree bark You might have passed by one or two while strolling through a park or hiking along a mountain trail Or maybe you know her bronze piece the giant sphere titled Rondure that sits on the front lawn of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science It s a crowd-pleaser A detail of Nikki Pike s work Ray Mark Rinaldi Special to The Denver Post Pike s latest endeavor changes the backdrop a bit and offers a whole new perspective on this bark-based work It s an indoor solo show titled Echoes from the Forest at Space Gallery a traditional white cube exhibition space in the Santa Fe arts district Her three-dimensional pieces are paired with concurrent solo shows by painters Susan M Gibbons and Jeff Juhlin and all three artists present something of an updated version of traditional Western art landscapes It s a high-level combo of regional artists who ask us to see the local landscape a place we think we know so well in deeper options Pike s work stands out here because it is not the usual stuff of formal art galleries For one thing it can be rather large One piece in this show titled Ovum which is shaped like a giant seed and sits in the middle of the gallery floor is feet long and just under feet tall But it is the material that is jarring for viewers Pike s work comes off as organic when it is viewed outdoors among trees that are also made of bark almost like an extension of nature itself But here removed and isolated from that obvious natural habitat we are invited to look at them from a more intellectual perspective To see them as high-end art commodities we might acquire for our personal spaces rather than whimsical residents art projects intended to please the masses The setting is a revelation and perhaps a better way to understand Pike s goal of inviting the viewer to consider the human connection to and impact on the natural world as she says in her artist s announcement Because we get a better grasp on her process I understand it like this Humans like things arranged in neat rows We like the clean right angles of a square and perfect circles We make sense of our world by putting it in order making it symmetrical when we can controlling things Otherwise we see chaos Nature does not place such constrictions upon itself Animals roam freely without the need for paved paths Seeds fall wherever they might and trees sprout up randomly They drop their leaves in the autumn without caring if someone rakes them up or not Chaos is the natural order With her paintings Susan M Gibbons aims to uncover the sublime overlooked and misunderstood beauty of the plains and hills according to her artist s message Ray Mark Rinaldi Special to The Denver Post Pike s work bridges that gap Her raw material rough bark that has been neither hewed nor polished is gathered together and then arranged in perfect geometrical shapes that appeal to the human eye Her Nova for example is a neatly arranged circle measuring nearly feet in diameter Her Totem is a diamond-shaped object made from triangles The pieces are three-dimensional though flat on the back so they hang on a wall They are sculptures though they have the personalities of reliefs But her trick in all of these exacting arrangements is to let the bark remain natural splintery and papery and to let its personality come through And by doing this we get a real sense of both the possibilities and limits of how humans and nature can co-exist Humans do have considerable power to bend nature to their wishes especially if they apply the brute force required to make these sculptures But when we respect the natural properties of the material we are shaping the relationship can authentically be quite beautiful and logical and work in every entity s best interest It s an inspirational lesson on co-existence that is not so easily read in a park where there are so multiple visual and audio distractions but which becomes fundamentally clear in a gallery It s a meaningful elevation of Pike s work and one that deserves to be seen Gibbons has her own way of collaborating with nature and it gives her landscapes on display here considerable depth She makes her own paint out of the dirt and rocks she finds in Colorado and New Mexico and applies it in a watercolor-like way to Japanese paper Graphite marks etch out the details of the terrain above ground and below it so we see both rolling hills on the Earth s surface and the layers of sedimentary rock beneath it She likens her landscapes to portraiture where an artist attempts to capture the facts of a person s face but also to reveal the character underneath Jeff Juhlin s uses a combination of paint wax and paper and applies it to wood panels Ray Mark Rinaldi Special to The Denver Post It is deeply spiritual work that suggests the planet has more to offer than what we give it credit for There is a soul and we can tap into it commune with it if we acknowledge and embrace that things that are not obvious Gibbons fits in neatly here with his own rich landscapes that combine the breadth of traditional oil-paint landscapes of the West with the sharp lines and visual divisions you might see in a classic collage The works are colorful and chunky He starts by using oil or acrylic paint to depict the wide-open skies he sees around him in the rocky plains of Wyoming and Utah Then he adds to the surface Asian papers that are stained and somewhat translucent as he says in his artist s declaration The papers come together to depict the land The paper is arranged in long narrow horizontal strips that mirror the layers of rock and soil that make up the Earth s outer surface His work asks us to look at the planet s present form as well as its history of growing and evolving over time and to consider our personal relationships with this cycle The same is true of the work presented here by Pike and Gibbons They all want to bring us closer to nature to help us respect it but also to partner with it in options that make sense and while giving all due respect to both the planet s ecological requirements and our human desires to understand and control our surroundings It is a challenge for commercial art galleries to assemble multiple shows at once and to build connections between artists with different ideas and approaches to their work This trio of exhibitions stares that down it is cohesive enlightening and very much a Western affair Ray Mark Rinaldi is a Denver-based freelance writer specializing in fine arts IF YOU GO The three exhibitions continue through May at Space Gallery Santa Fe Drive They are free Info - - or spacegallery org Subscribe to our weekly newsletter In The Know to get 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