LightWait: Mindy Bray + Jessica Forrestal | Curated by Drew Austin

Join us at Alto Gallery (3773 Walnut St, Denver, CO 80216) on Friday, August 7, 2026 from 6 – 10 PM for the opening reception of LightWait, a duo exhibition by Denver-based artists Mindy Bray and Jessica Forrestal and guest curated by Drew Austin. This exhibition marks the first show at our new location on Walnut St. Free event and refreshments, open to the public. On view August 7 – 29.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT:

This collaborative exhibition from artists Jessica Forrestal and Mindy Bray explores the power of patience, deep looking, and dichotomous thinking. Derived from a play on words stemming from lightweight, a term that speaks to efficiency, low tolerance, or physical lightness, LightWait privileges slowness and intentional specificity through the act of looking and recontextualizing.

Though the work of Forrestal and Bray’s individual practices result in visually different work, there is a connecting thread that compounds when in close proximity: observation. Both artists exhibit a willingness to pause in their practice: from documenting waves lapping over and over again in a body of water to recognizing beauty within an instruction manual to inquiring into the interaction between human-created structures and the natural world within which those structures exist.

Through collaboration, these two artists bring to light the life that radiates all around us. The large-scale mural at the center of the exhibition blends both artistic styles flawlessly, harnessing the potential of shared community, the levity in a consumer culture, and the beauty of the everyday mundane that most overlook.

This exhibition asks the viewer to join the artists in the action of looking, thinking, pondering, and reflecting through the process of creation. Markmaking, abstraction of form, light, shadow, color, and lack thereof all take center stage in an exhibition about time, objects, organic structures, systems, and the way humans engage in all of the above, each and every day.

BIOS + STATEMENTS:

MINDY BRAY – BIO

Mindy Bray is a painter and muralist based in Denver, CO. Her work investigates the intersection of natural and built environments through pattern, reduction, and physical space. Mindy earned her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Iowa in 2005 and has taught drawing and foundations at the University of Denver and Metropolitan State University. Her work has been exhibited nationally at galleries including Goodwin Fine Art, Rule Gallery, Ironton, and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art. She has been featured in New American Paintings, The Denver Post, Modern in Denver magazine, art ltd., and Luxe Interiors and Design. Mindy’s public commissions include permanent works at the Westin Hotel at Denver International Airport and the Colorado Convention Center, and her private commissions can be found in commercial and residential spaces throughout Denver. Mindy is a current member of Tank Studios, a board member of Tilt West, and an instructor for the Denver Art Museum’s Creative Classes.

MINDY BRAY – STATEMENT

My works on paper and on the wall examine the intersection of natural and built environments. Based on photographs of places such as city parks, urban waterways and residential landscapes, the works trace the complex relationship between people and their habitat. Beginning with photography, the images start as fields of flat visual information which are then manipulated both digitally and manually. The paintings arrive at a place where positive and negative spaces are fluidly balanced, reversed or canceled, allowing the work to hover between abstraction and representation.

https://www.mindybray.com/

JESSICA FORRESTAL – BIO

Jessica Forrestal is an artist based in Denver, Colorado. She holds an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, an MA from the University of Northern Colorado, and a BA from Colorado State University. Her studio practice is informed by her experience as an art educator and years of creating alongside young artists. Working primarily in black and white, she draws on the visual language of diagrams to investigate systems of communication, constructed environments, and the shifting relationship between order and ambiguity.

Forrestal was selected as the inaugural artist-in-residence for the Campus Commons Gallery at the University of Northern Colorado. Her additional residencies include PlatteForum in Denver, the Children’s Museum of Denver, and the Firehouse Art Center in Longmont, Colorado.

JESSICA FORRESTAL – STATEMENT

Using the authoritative language of diagrams and schematics, I investigate how we make sense of one another, the spaces we inhabit, and the systems we create. Composed in black and white, my drawings move between precision and ambiguity, where recognition meets estrangement. Objects are reimagined and recontextualized. Patterns become pathways. Building is inseparable from dismantling. My slow, labor-intensive process stands in contrast to a culture of efficiency and disposability. The drawings create a space for uncertainty, where understanding remains incomplete and new connections continue to emerge.

The works on the wall respond to the subjective experience of an architectural space, including the phenomena of light and shadow, scale, and movement. I find parallels between the lived experience of a built space and the surrounding natural environment, revealing connections between the site and the landscape. My imagery includes rivers, trees and foliage that are reduced and abstracted, creating fields of pattern that invite interpretation, with references as diverse as maps, microcosms, or the Milky Way.

https://www.jessicaforrestal.com/

DREW AUSTIN – BIO

Drew Austin (b.1996) is an interdisciplinary artist and curator living and working in Denver, CO. He grew up in Great Falls, Montana, and attended the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, in Denver, which he graduated from in 2017 with his BFA as Valedictorian.

Austin is the Curator and a Board Member for Leon Art Gallery, the Program Manager for The Wayfaring Band, as well as a contributing editor for The Thalweg. He previously worked as the Curator of Visual Arts at The Dairy Arts Center, Exhibitions Curator for ReCreative Denver, and put together independent curatorial projects in spaces such as Redline Denver, The Temple Artist Studios, The Denver Armory, Lane Meyer Projects, and Alto Gallery. Portrayed primarily through drawing, sculpture, and light-based installation, Austin’s work functions as a conduit for understanding and comprehension of everyday things—mundane situations, queer experience, domestic space, slow growth, and light—both large and small in a human-dominated world.

https://www.studiodrewaustin.com/

DATES

Exhibition: Friday, August 7 – Saturday, August 29, 2026

Opening Reception: Friday, August 7, 6 – 10 PM