Local artists and creatives are the heartbeat of Denver. This month we focus on 3 artists with very different styles and you’ll soon see why they caught our eye. Please seek them out, support their work and show some love for the unique contributions they make to our amazing city!

ANNA CHARNEY:

Find and follow her HERE and on INSTAGRAM

Charney is a painter and muralist of abstract pattern works. She received her BFA in painting/drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has been living and working back in her hometown of Denver, Colorado since 2016. Her practice includes works on canvas, installation pieces, and indoor/outdoor murals on any scale (both in the private and public sector).

Charney has exhibited in galleries and painted murals in Colorado, California, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Florida, Alaska, Utah, Nebraska, Texas, France and Costa Rica. Charney’s optical paintings and murals are characterized by their expansive compositions, graphic dot patterning and dense detail. Through illusionistic deception, dynamic arrangements of detail and corresponding visual rhythms, Charney creates a sensational and immersive experience for the viewers of her paintings and installations.

Using acrylic on canvas and aerosol on murals, she describes her illusionistic spaces and bending forms as “digital taffy”.

KRIS ILTIS:

Find and follow her HERE and on INSTAGRAM

“I want to push color and simplify image to celebrate my subject. When I look at a painting it’s the artist‘s journey that catches my eye rather than drafting skills.”

A most delicious way to embrace this life is to paint it. Everything quiets and like turning the lens of a camera to focus, you begin to explore. I paint from the outside in. I paint what I see.

The celebration becomes the play with the paint. Brush-marks, scrapes and lines are my tools to capture color and light. I want to delight the eye with a big reward.”

CHRIS VAN ESSEN:

Find and follow him on INSTAGRAM

Chris Van Essen is a Denver native whose work walks the lines between illustrator and painter, mixing vibrant and spirited scenes with a painterly look. Chris is not formally trained, but he has had numerous teachers including his father, an impressionist landscape artist.

Raised in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains with a steady diet of Fantasy novels and Super Nintendo, Chris became entranced by the mystery and adventure found just few miles west of Denver. Intrigued by the places that reach beyond our short time on this planet. Inspired by peaks raised from the cracks of the Earth, standing silently through the ages, holding secrets and stories no one will ever hear.

In his work, Chris tries to capture that ineffable feeling of wonder and mystery that comes from a new trail and a wild imagination.