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November 22 - December 16, 2025
Softer, Louder:
Platte Forum Resident Alumni Exhibition
Please join us
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 25 | 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Softer, Louder brings together six PlatteForum alumni: Tricia Waddell, Steven Frost, Lexy Ho-Tai, Libby Barbee, Kathryn Batsel, and Frankie Toan, whose practices demonstrate how color, softness, and joy can be both intimate gestures and radical acts. Across fiber, soft sculpture, and collage, their works radiate exuberance while carrying the weight of critique, each artist leaning into materials historically tied to the body, touch, and care. Here, fabric becomes talisman, banner, puppet, garden, landscape, and world, expanded into forms that resist erasure and invite belonging.
Waddell transforms cloth into vessels of vulnerability, giving shape to hidden emotions and the stigma of mental health; Frost reimagines weaving and flag-making as queer archives and communal declarations; Ho-Tai explodes color into kaleidoscopic costumes and creatures that champion play and inclusivity; Barbee layers fragments of landscape and history, exposing the myths and manipulations embedded in how culture frames the land; Batsel revels in campy spectacle, queering materials and characters into exuberant counter-worlds; Toan cultivates plush environments and queer gardens where softness, care, and interdependence are strategies for survival.
What unites them is a conviction that art is not neutral: it is a site of healing, critique, and reimagining. In a time when identity, and joy are increasingly threatened, these artists insist on their vitality. Their works remind us that joy is not frivolous but defiant, that softness is a form of strength, and that queerness offers not only resistance but new ways of flourishing together.
- Ilan Gutin, Curator
Waddell transforms cloth into vessels of vulnerability, giving shape to hidden emotions and the stigma of mental health; Frost reimagines weaving and flag-making as queer archives and communal declarations; Ho-Tai explodes color into kaleidoscopic costumes and creatures that champion play and inclusivity; Barbee layers fragments of landscape and history, exposing the myths and manipulations embedded in how culture frames the land; Batsel revels in campy spectacle, queering materials and characters into exuberant counter-worlds; Toan cultivates plush environments and queer gardens where softness, care, and interdependence are strategies for survival.
What unites them is a conviction that art is not neutral: it is a site of healing, critique, and reimagining. In a time when identity, and joy are increasingly threatened, these artists insist on their vitality. Their works remind us that joy is not frivolous but defiant, that softness is a form of strength, and that queerness offers not only resistance but new ways of flourishing together.
- Ilan Gutin, Curator
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Coming Next December 19 - December 23 SPARKle Annual Holiday Show and Sale RECEPTION: Join us for cookies & hot cider on Saturday, December 20th from 11-3:30 |
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SPARK GALLERY in the NEWS!
April 6, 2025 : DENVER POST
March 19, 2025: Denver's WESTWORD
May 2025 Issue: DARIA ART MAGAZINE
LOCATION
Spark Gallery
1200 Acoma St, Suite 100
Denver, CO 80204
303.681.4687
- Across the plaza from the Denver Art Museum, next door to Mad Greens
- Paid parking available in Art Museum parking garage - enter on 12th Ave between Broadway and Acoma
HOURS
Open Hours:
• Friday 11:00am - 3:30pm • Saturday 11:00am - 3:30pm • Sunday 11:00am - 3:30pm
• Monday 11:00am - 3:30pm • Tuesday 11:00am - 9:00pm
April 6, 2025 : DENVER POST
March 19, 2025: Denver's WESTWORD
May 2025 Issue: DARIA ART MAGAZINE
LOCATION
Spark Gallery
1200 Acoma St, Suite 100
Denver, CO 80204
303.681.4687
- Across the plaza from the Denver Art Museum, next door to Mad Greens
- Paid parking available in Art Museum parking garage - enter on 12th Ave between Broadway and Acoma
HOURS
Open Hours:
• Friday 11:00am - 3:30pm • Saturday 11:00am - 3:30pm • Sunday 11:00am - 3:30pm
• Monday 11:00am - 3:30pm • Tuesday 11:00am - 9:00pm
Spark Gallery has offered an alternative space supporting a positive creative community in the heart of Denver since 1979.
We welcome your donation in any amount. Spark Gallery is a 501(c)3 non-profit, and your donation is tax deductible.
We welcome your donation in any amount. Spark Gallery is a 501(c)3 non-profit, and your donation is tax deductible.