Red West Contemporary Art Gallery opens its doors on June 1st with the exhibit “Disorderly Conduct,” a fresh, enriching, and vibrant art experience. Created by the team of Susan Schiesser, Pat Walsh, Jim Cook and landlord Eric Rogers, Red West features sculpture, fiber installation, oil, acrylic and mixed media paintings, and video installation by an exciting roster of Steamboat and Front Range artists.

This month the spotlight is on Joel S. Allen, an internationally collected Steamboat resident with an impressive history.  Joel, a sculptor/installation artist, moved to Steamboat from Montana in 2012 and has been busy with major national museum shows, corporate and private commissions, and teaching an innovative sculpture class at CMC.  Joel’s current body of work, “Hooked on Svelte,” is a complicated construction of fiber, cord, wire and assorted other materials.  The process is slow and deliberate, and the result is a vibrant, inventive, stimulating series of sculptures that bind sense, mind and heart.

Among the dozen gallery artists are Betty Ross of Colorado Springs and Dawn Wilde from Steamboat. Betty, a recognized creative force in painting for 40 plus years, seeks inspiring and intriguing places in nature from which she fills her canvases in brilliant colors and exotic abstracted forms.  Dawn, with an equally extensive career in painting and teaching, uses thousands of small marks to build bold, evocative environments and breathtaking abstracts.

Artist Stacey Steers, is known for her process-driven, labor-intensive animated films; Edge of Alchemy, Night Hunter, Phantom Canyon, composed of thousands of handmade works on paper, and early cinematic sources. Screened widely throughout the US and abroad, her work receives numerous awards and is widely collected.

In addition to the gallery, the newly renamed IMAGINE building at 1125 Lincoln hosts artist studios on the second floor. They will participate in the First Fridays Open House, and offer classes and demos in the gallery throughout the summer.

Red West, a Pop Up spin off from Red Contemporary Gallery, will be open through the summer season.   The hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m Monday through Friday. For weekend appointments, text or call 970-846-7879.