Mountain Standard Time
| 06.05.2026 - 08.30.2026 | 6:00pm
Artists: Grace Kennison, Ryan Scheer, Tim Rickett, Epiphany Couch, Justin Giunta, Justin Colt Beckman, Erika Osborne, Jesse Albrecht, Jed Webster Smith, Chelsea Kaiah, Kelly Moran, Mona Cliff, Jess Kellner, Ellen Moses, Wendy Klemperer, Eleanor Foy, Charlie-Anne Hopkins
Grab your spurs and perhaps your smartphone—as Visions West Contemporary proudly presents Mountain Standard Time. This summer group show is something between high-noon showdown between the dusty myths of the past and the "messy-on-purpose" reality of the modern West. From Epiphany Couch, whose work directly dismantles the romanticized tropes of Manifest Destiny by replacing colonial myths with Indigenous presence, sovereignty, and ecological reciprocity to Tim Rickett, whose work attacks the same myth with a scalpel of sharp irony, pop-culture humor, and plastic toys. He targets the hyper-masculine, commercialized "Hollywood West," exposing just how flimsy, constructed, and ultimately ridiculous the colonial cowboy trope truly is. For over two decades, Visions West has operated under a sharp thesis: the West is no longer a physical frontier to be conquered, but a fraught psychological container where nature, artifice, and historical memory collide. In Mountain Standard Time, a vibrant cohort of artists dismantles the shopworn romanticism of Terra Nullius—the colonial myth that this land was a vacant, pristine playground waiting for white settlers—and replaces it with a landscape that feels destabilized, modern, and profoundly alive.
Radiant Beasts
| 06.12.2026 - 07.10.2026 |
Artists: Rachel Denny, Steve Snell, Travis Walker
Radiant Beasts is a vibrant, immersive exhibition that reinterprets the natural world and the traditional American wilderness through the distinct voices of Rachel Denny, Steve Snell, and Travis Walker. Blurring the boundaries between the organic and the artificial, the show replaces the solemnity typically associated with nature art with a captivating mix of wonder, irony, and kitsch. Denny subverts the masculine symbol of the hunting trophy with her intricate "Cashmere Trophies," upholstering sculptural fauna in delicate knits to explore the intersection of domesticity and the untamable wild. Adding to this reimagined ecosystem, Snell satirizes the myth of the Great American West through his whimsical "Adventure Art," utilizing bold colors to critique our romanticized performance of outdoor exploration. Meanwhile, Walker anchors the exhibition in a surreal reality, juxtaposing wild creatures within light-drenched, cinematic, and suburban contexts to evoke a profound yet playful narrative tension. Ultimately, treating the animal kingdom as a rich medium for storytelling rather than a mere specimen to be studied, the interplay of Denny’s soft textures, Snell’s narrative wit, and Walker’s electric color theory creates an ecosystem that feels both nostalgic and futuristic.