F*Bomb

Sarah Gjertson: Influences and Legacies

On view April 4 through May 5, 2024

The Vicki Myhren Gallery is pleased to present F*BOMB, featuring the artwork of long-time University of Denver professor Sarah Gjertson alongside a sampling of her influences, mentors, and students. This exhibition stretches beyond the traditional boundaries of a retrospective, instead tracing personal and artistic lineages through generations. This curatorial approach, suggested by Gjertson, parallels a community-centered ethos that grounds her artistic practice and approach as an educator, foregrounding connections across time, space, and people.  

Inspired by feminist, anti-authoritarian, punk, and DIY subcultures, Gjertson thoughtfully deploys both humor and tenderness, disruption and community-building, to make visible the stories and voices of women “traversing the complex and conflicting expectations they experience living in American culture.” Gjertson’s work critiques gendered stereotypes, encourages individuals to use their voice, and invites expressions of anger, frustration, activism, and satire to disrupt and reimagine the world.  

Gjertson and the artists in this exhibition play with various materials and processes, presenting engaging works that often employ revisionist methods of making.  Crossing boundaries between “high” and “low” art forms, and experiences of comfort/discomfort, their art encourages dialogue and challenges societal norms of respectability. F*BOMB celebrates the subversive, boisterous, funny, personal, and political. Perhaps most importantly, it locates Gjertson and her work within an extended legacy of transformative and empowering art making practice, acknowledging those who came before and those who come after.  

Featured Artists:  

Photo credit: Wes Magyar