Arlo Panter, “Electro Crystal Magma.” Arlo Panter, 913 Gallery
click to enlarge A detail from Kathryn Batsel’s Void World installation at the Storeroom. Kathryn Batsel
click to enlarge Kazuaki Koseki, “The Gods Live.” © Kazuaki Koseki
Shalene Valenzuela, “Measure Up.” Shalene Valenzuela, courtesy Plinth Gallery
click to enlarge Lindsay-Smith-Gustave, “Golden, Rotten” (detail), 2021; glass beads, thread, found objects, wire, chain, chiffon, wood, contact paper, pins. Lindsay-Smith-Gustave
click to enlarge Thinh-Dinh, “Echoes of Nowhere,” screen-printed glass. Thinh-Dinh
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February is closing out with the opening of new shows ranging from Andy Bauch’s LEGO masterpieces to a crowd of new exhibits at the Dairy Arts Center and a major coup — Photolucida’s Critical Mass Top 50 — at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. And all you have to do to see Kathryn Batsel’s queer femme installation at the Storeroom is pass by.What moves your artsy eye? Find a personal match here:Painter Arlo Panter lets loose with a splash of color and gesture in abstracted paintings that suggest the shapes, mood and visuals of real places.The Dairy unveils a series of new shows destined to carry the galleries into early spring, beginning with a Spotlight exhibition celebrating Denver’s Access Gallery art-mentoring program for young people with disabilities. The show doubles as a Mo’Print entry as well, displaying abstract self-portraits created during a screen-printing workshop with artist Chinn Wang, who encouraged students to delve into ways to personalize their images with individualized symbols. Chinn Wang also has a show of her own in the Polly Addison Gallery to accompany theirs; for, she dives into symbols from a cultural heritage hidden by her immigrant parents. Further explorations include an exhibition of acrylic paintings by Alissa Davies in the Locals Only Gallery, and a collaboration by ceramic artist A. Grix with sound designer Brook Vann and marble carver Ana González Barragán in the McMahon Gallery.Fiber artist Kathryn Batsel, who also works in digital collage via 3-D printing, repurposed used ceramics by scanning,altering digitally and reprinting them to create the installation, a phantasmagoria of queer femme aesthetics, as characterized by a colorful group of pop-culture creatures. Given their toy-like appeal, all pieces will be for sale, with proceeds going directly to the artist.Art shows by Susan Wick are far and few between, but worth the wait; there’s nothing out there quite like Wick’s work, a fully integrated visual body inseparable from the woman and her expansive and lively personality. Co-curated by Adam Gildar, the exhibitionbegins in the Main Gallery space with new and recent works, each of them a snapshot into the artist’s creative mind, while the Project Space will house an installational shorthand retrospective, judiciously covering her artistic development over fifty years. The pièce de résistance? Wick will host a tour of her living studio at ZWick Place on the evening of March 9, an exhilarating and essential step toward understanding her oeuvre.CPAC puts its new space to the test with the major exhibition, a compilation of the top fifty works selected in Photolucida’s annual Critical Mass 2023 juried photography competition . As the only U.S. photo center to host the show this year, CPAC has a chance to shine in the national spotlight, a personal goal of director Samantha Johnston since taking over the organization in 2015. And there’s no doubt that this show, a distillation of the best of the best, all working on a central theme, is going to be an eye-opening view of the endless possibilities of photographic art.Shalene Valenzuela’s cheekyat Plinth Gallery includes a load of retro ceramic toasters, telephones, irons and other utilitarian objects painted with anachronistic ladies who channel more modern concerns. The show will be around through the end of March, leaving plenty of time to catch Valenzuela’s sociopolitical statements in clay.The secondcuratorial showcase of 2024,, takes cues from the odd couples of Shakespeare and Tchaikovsky, offering works inspired by tragic characters Ophelia () and Odette (). Artists Drew Austin, Robin Gammons, Lindsay Smith Gustave, Agnes Ma, Arthur Williams and Daphne Sweet, selected by curator Kiera McIntosh, offer works sharing elegiac outcomes informed by melancholic narrative trajectories.LEGO art is having its day in Colorado, between the LEGO art show that opened last weekend at the Par.a.dox Fine Art Gallery in Loveland and a more rarefied display by LEGO artist Andy Bauch, whose scenes fashioned from thousands of the popular plastic bricks will be paired with work molded simply by the cheerful pop sensibilities of Artie Sandstone. The show runs through March 22 on Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. or by appointment As a key player in the local Mo’Print itinerary, the Art Gym and its shared printmaking facility make for a must-see stop during the biennial citywide printmaking showcase. This weekend, an exhibition by Art Gym’s printmaking members debuts in the Main Gallery, along with a fifteen-artist invitational —, focusing on prints inspired by subjects from the study of ecology — in the Leyden Jar Gallery. And pencil in Mo’Print’s, opening March 21, on your art calendar.