On a balmy summer afternoon, Boulder’s University Hill buzzes with the youthful energy of a college town. Students spill out of local establishments, their chatter echoing through the streets while music thumps from nearby houses. Amid this lively scene, tucked away on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Nick Ryan Gallery is an oasis of calm.
Inside, the gallery’s upcoming exhibition, Recollections, invites visitors to step back from the chaos and into the quiet contemplation of memory and nostalgia. Opening Aug. 16, this late-summer group show features four artists - Jessica Rohrer, Andrew Watel, Brenda Stumpf and Daniel Granitto - who incorporate personal and collective reflection into their representational works.
The gallery was founded by CU Boulder graduate Nick Ryan, who got his start at the Boulder-based MacLaren Markowitz Gallery and spent nearly two decades honing his curatorial skills at Denver’s William Havu Gallery. His new multi-level space opened its doors in May with Polyphony, a solo exhibition by Denver-based Bruce Price.
“It has always been my dream to open a gallery here,” Ryan says. “Boulder is a beautiful city, but it has lacked a premier commercial gallery. Since no one else was stepping up, I decided to take the lead.”
Ryan’s vision is to showcase compelling works by regional and national artists to foster dialogue between the local community and the larger art world. In Recollections, that conversation centers on how memory influences artistic expression, with each artist drawing on their history to create something new.
Jessica Rohrer’s work in Recollections offers a glimpse into the cookie-cutter landscapes many suburbanites know intimately. The Yale-educated painter was inspired by drone images of her New Jersey neighborhood, capturing the grid-like precision of residential streets from a birds-eye view.
“I’ve always painted what I see around me,” Rohrer says. “Once I moved to the suburbs, I started painting the neighborhood. Eventually, I started using drone images to see the environment from a different perspective.”
Rohrer’s meticulous approach to her work is evident in the degree of detail. Whether it’s the slightly askew horizon lines or the voyeuristic view from her window, her paintings evoke a sense of familiarity while also inviting viewers to see the suburban landscape through her eyes.
“Even though I am painting a particular place, you wouldn’t know it’s New Jersey from looking at my work,” she says. “The idea is that anyone could resonate with them and be reminded of an area in the suburbs they recognize or grew up in.”
Memory is also essential to the process of fellow exhibiting artist Andrew Watel. The Kansas City-based creative specializes in dramatic, somewhat abstract drawings and paintings of everyday household objects - a simple spring or an air filter - which are more about his personal experiences with these items than what they do.
“People may look at these objects and not think they’re beautiful, but I do,” Watel says. “They have no meaning outside of their function. Everything I paint is very simple. Later on, I often wonder why I chose these things, but that is only after the fact. In the moment, it is more about what items I am drawn to and what I remember.”
Like the other artists in Recollections, Brenda Stumpf transports viewers to the places from her past that still linger in her mind. In 2018, the Colorado-based artist began experimenting with a style of work known as image-transfer - which uses laser printing to transpose an image to another medium - because she was fascinated by the “haunting” quality it gave to her large-scale paintings of decaying houses, eerie rock formations and clandestine passageways. Her large-scale pieces capture the beauty of abandoned structures in rural America, creating a sense of place that is both specific and universal.
“Even though I have my ideas about the work, it’s so nice that people can walk up and have their relationship with it,” Stumpf says. “I’m always curious about what happens when you take your work out of the studio and put it in a different context - it allows you to experience the work in a new way.”
Daniel Granitto’s work in Recollections is also deeply rooted in places he knows well, often beginning with a photograph but extending far beyond mere visual likeness. His paintings strive to capture the essence of a location, blending the accuracy of a photograph with the richness of his memories of settings in and around his hometown of Lakewood, where he now lives with his wife and two kids.
“The photographs I use often don’t convey the fullness my memory has about where the subject was,” Granitto says. “I use the photo as a starting point, but then lean on memory to capture what the photo missed.”
Granitto’s work walks a tightrope between photorealism and his memories of the locations he recreates. His landscapes, with their chipped flower pots and crooked porches, might feel familiar from your own past - regardless of where it took place.
“There’s a negative predisposition in the art world towards nostalgia,” Granitto says. “But because I paint such personal subject matters, it’s hard not to paint the thing in a way that is sort of loving.”
