Artist Noelle Phares Launches Hothouse At Space Gallery
PHOTOGRAPHED BY KYLIE FITTS & ALEX EATON // ARTWORK BY NOELLE PHARES
Denver-based artist Noelle Phares titled her new body of work “Hothouse” before she began painting it. Initially inspired by an encounter with a greenhouse during a winter visit to a Wyoming ranch, Phares’ eighteen new paintings on panel and canvas explore the impact of climate change on the natural world.
“These paintings are meant to spark whatever can be sparked in the hearts of viewers who love life on Earth and care to see it go on,” Phares said.
Hothouse investigates our complex relationships with heat and its impacts on the natural world as a metaphor for climate change. Each piece in the exhibition employs landscape and sometimes figures to examine a different facet of this topic. Paintings reference geysers, hot springs, and the wildfires that have ravaged the American West in recent years.
Batholith
Phares is an environmental scientist by training who began painting professionally in 2017. Her work combines landscape elements with structural geometry and explores the ever-encroaching presence of humanity into previously pristine open spaces.
“My goal is to inspire conversations, about landscapes, why they are vulnerable, and why we need to be more conscientious about making choices that enhance nature instead of hurting it,” Phares said.
Plume
Strawberry
Phares’ work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and internationally, most recently at Hancock Gallery in Newcastle, UK. She's the featured artist for this year's Cherry Creek Arts Festival, which takes place in Cherry Creek this July 1 to 3. Her painting "Light Born in Spring" is being used as the art for the 2022 Cherry Creek Arts Festival poster.
Hothouse is on display through Saturday, May 28, at Denver’s Space Gallery, at 400 Santa Fe Drive.