Sean O’Meallie: Tree – Saw - Paint

Tanner Valant: Reimagined

Kreuser Gallery

125 E. Boulder Street

Colorado Springs, CO 80903

October 7-28, 2022

Admission: free

Karen Khoury: the texture of life and the beauty of the world

Meghan Wilbar: Nightfall, Fallen

G44 Gallery

121 E. Boulder Street

Colorado Springs, CO 80903

October 7-28, 2022

Admission: free

Review by Emily Zeek

At Kreuser Gallery in Colorado Springs, 17-year-old Tanner Valant is showing several hyper-realistic drawings in colored pencil he learned how to make during the pandemic. Delving into the territory of “nostalgia” in an exhibition called Reimagined, Valant seems oblivious of his age, somehow managing to tap into a visually prescient reality. His piece Still Smiling features a smiley face icon, so emblematic of 1990s and 2000s culture, crumpled up, with textures, troughs, and valleys, but ultimately not discarded by Valant. He recycles it into a work of art that does not gloss over the weathered history of the past but embraces time moving forward.

Tanner Valant, *Still Smiling*, colored pencil, 22 x 30 inches (24 x 32 inches framed). Image courtesy of Kreuser Gallery.

If you came of age during the 2000s, when a certain misogynistic, patriarchal Christian revival was taking hold of the country, you may (like me) have some mixed feelings about Colorado Springs and its cultural legacy. After Native Americans were displaced from the region to reservations in the 1890s—to make room for a budding industry of mining and gold—the area played host to health tourists seeking sanatoriums where they could relax in the mountain air and recover from tuberculosis. The military soon followed, building up their industry in the Springs until the end of the Cold War, when the fight against encroaching communism no longer dominated government budgets.[1]

Six works by Sean O’Maillie in his exhibition *Tree - Saw - Paint* at Kreuser Gallery. Image by Emily Zeek.

Rather than evolving beyond a war economy, Colorado Springs pivoted. Reimagining the nuclear threat, they suited up for the culture war that began in earnest with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Following the lead of Young Life—a disembodied youth group that began in the Springs in the 1940s and attracted teens to Evangelical Christianity—Focus on the Family relocated to Colorado Springs in the 1980s and established the city as a hub for conservative evangelicals. [2] In the 1984 election, a total of 75% of the voters in the city cast their ballots for Reagan. The state as whole remained Republican until 2008 when Barack Obama was elected and Colorado went blue. [3]

Four works by Karen Khoury in her exhibition *the texture of life and beauty of the world* at G44 Gallery. Image by Emily Zeek.

Colorado Springs has been changing since then. [4] When Kreuser Gallery owner Abby Kreuser found her new location on Boulder Street, she asserts that her goal was to create a culture of collaboration and support rather than competition and ego. [5] She works congruently with the neighboring gallerist Gundega Stevens who owns G44 Gallery. The two galleries sit side by side and adjoin one another.

Karen Khoury, *Untitled 16*, acrylic on panel, 11 x 14 inches. Image courtesy of G44 Gallery.

Similar to the implied themes in Valant’s work at Kreuser, artist Karen Khoury uses texture to explore the struggles and challenges of life and community in her show the texture of life and beauty of the world at G44 Gallery. While many of her paintings are black and white, Khoury intersperses streaks of color to represent the beauty that emerges throughout the passage of our lives.

Karen Khoury, *Untitled 6*, acrylic on panel, 16 x 16 inches. Image courtesy of G44 Gallery.

Khoury’s textured pieces give the viewer something to contemplate about the different periods our lives. Some works are organized and neat, symbolizing perhaps a rote and monotonous daily commute, like Untitled 3. Larger works, such as Untitled 5 and Untitled 6, resemble woven textiles due to their checkerboard-like patterning. While some pieces exist happily in shades of grey with flower patterns, like Untitled 19, others are militantly all black (Untitled 9) or all white (Untitled 10), perhaps symbolizing periods in our lives when extremes in thinking dominate.

Sean O'Meallie, *Dream Fruit of Psychedelic Produce*, 2021, painted wood, 52 x 43 x 7 inches. Image courtesy of Kreuser Gallery.

Back at Kreuser Gallery, Sean O’Meallie’s show Tree - Saw - Paint feels like juicy and nutritious fun. The main gallery features two sculptures of watermelons cut into pieces and a wall full of abstracted melons and fruit, titled Dream Fruit of Psychedelic Produce, are on display next to sculptures of potatoes called Color Fried Potato Bomb Puzzle in Dynamic Arrangement. Another wall is covered in soft abstract shapes filled with realistic eyeballs that stare back at you like an art mirror of absurdity. These works all showcase O’Meallie’s craftsmanship in the medium of wood but also his skills as a colorist.

Sean O'Meallie, *Study in Black*, 2020, painted wood, 45 x 54 x 4.5 inches. Image courtesy of Kreuser Gallery.

But in the next gallery space, O’Meallie complicates things. In a work called Study in Black, about 32 phallic guns positioned on a checkerboard background are reminiscent of the brinksmanship of the Cold War and the explosive aspects of testosterone. Like Khoury, O’Meallie plays with the form of checkboard crisscrosses and creates meaning out of the color black, as well in his nausea-inducing Black Door. By standing 6 feet from the enveloping black work, the viewer can lose peripheral perspective and begin to wobble.

Meghan Wilbar’s exhibition *Nightfall, Fallen* at G44 Gallery, with the artist on the right. Image by Emily Zeek.

At G44, in an exhibition titled Nightfall, Fallen, Meghan Wilbar displays a collection of landscape paintings with vibrant hues and breathtaking deep blues. Her process is unique and site specific. She works out of her car, tearing up sheets of paper to simulate the landscape in front of her, and she returns to the same location three or four times until she gets a satisfactory paper sketch. Wilbur then replicates the paper drawings with oil paint, filling in the colors by memory.

Three works by Meghan Wilbar—left: *Prequel: Scattering Sunset*, mixed media (graphite, oil, paper, and matte board), 14 x 15 inches; center: *Prequel: Night's Hallelujah*, mixed media (graphite, oil, paper, and matte board), 16 x 20 inches; right: *Prequel: Coming Home*, mixed media (graphite, oil, paper, and matte board), 14 x 15 inches. Image by Emily Zeek.

The success of G44 and Kreuser is evident. While the galleries focus on talent in the Pikes Peak region, collectors follow the venues from across the globe. Breaking from the cultural legacy of Colorado Springs, these galleries proffer in something more nurturing and encouraging. See their current exhibitions through October 28, and don’t miss Sean O’Maillie’s artist’s talk on October 19 at 5:30 p.m. and Karen Khoury’s talk on October 20 at 5:30 p.m.

Emily Zeek (she/her) is a transmedia and social practice artist from Littleton, Colorado who works with themes of feminism, sustainability, and anti-capitalism. She holds a BFA in Transmedia Sculpture from the University of Colorado Denver and a BS in Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines.

[1] Kate Perdoni, “Lost & Preserved in Colorado Springs,” February 4, 2021: https://youtu.be/q09ALRrY6Dw.

[2] Noel Black and Jake Brownell, “Wish We Were Here, Episode 10: After the Evangelical Vatican | Colorado Public Radio,” Colorado Public Radio, accessed October 10, 2022: https://www.cpr.org/podcast-episode/wish-we-were-here-episode-10-after-the-evangelical-vatican/.

[3] See https://uselectionatlas.org.

[4] In recent years, while the rest of the country has seen a rise in extremism, Colorado Springs has been bucking this trend. In 2020, the city delivered 53% of the vote to Trump, down from 56.2% in 2016. This cooling off may have been fueled by the indiscretions of the Colorado Springs-based, evangelical pastor Ted Haggard, who despite preaching a violently anti-gay philosophy was himself engaging in the services of male escorts while high on crystal meth. See Noel Black and Jake Brownell, “Wish We Were Here, Episode 10: After the Evangelical Vatican | Colorado Public Radio.”

[5] From my interviews with the gallery owners.