“Boulder Through The Decades”, Art show by Jonathan Machen at the Museum of Boulder, August-September, 2019 2205 Broadway, Boulder CO 80302, www.museumofboulder.org Reception August 16, 6-8pm.
Boulder has been Jonathan Machen’s home since he arrived from Los Alamos, New Mexico as a freshman at the University of Colorado in 1982. As a studio art and art history major, Jonathan studied with Clint Cline, Frank Sampson, Chuck Forsman and Garrison Roots while also sketching and painting on his own, which has continued up to the present day.
“Boulder Through the Decades”, comprising over 40 works in oil, watercolor, pen-and-ink and plein-air pencil and chalk studies, is a wide-ranging artistic study of Boulder’s natural and architectural environment. A love of both architecture and nature has inspired Jonathan to sink deeply into both the natural and the human environments found in Boulder. In this show Jonathan has selected many studies and finished works of architectural gems that define Boulder, as well as a number of lesser-known locations, with perspectives mostly gained by exploration on bicycle or on foot.
Here are some of the places Machen depicts: The Boulder Theater, Fox Theater and Tulagis, Boulder Cafe, Foursquare Church, East and North Boulder Recreation Centers, Boulder Public Library, Pasta Jays, The Southern Sun, the Museum of Boulder and the First Congregational Church, Chautauqua Auditorium, The County Courthouse, Arnett-Fullen House, Boulder Bandshell, The Laughing Goat Cafe, Ras Kassas Ethiopian Restaurant, Casey Middle School, NCAR, Dushanbe Teahouse, The Bike Paths, Folsom Stadium, The University Club, and Fiske Planetarium.
A few works in the show depict Machen’s home in Fourmile Canyon on the outskirts of Boulder, where he has painted and drawn in all seasons; and one work, “Unite With Love”, depicts the Womens’ March following the 2016 Presidential Election in Denver, the only overtly political piece included in the show.
Fiske Planetarium, University of Colorado, 1993