World-renowned artist returns to hometown Colorado Springs for art show

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Patrick Shearn has been featured at Burning Man, Cochella, and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. For the first time in his career, he hosts a show in the town he grew up in.

"It's a big honor to be able to do a gallery show at all," Shearn said. "I've done stuff all over the world, but coming back home, it just it's a kind of a nice, safe, comfortable landing spot."

Opening night is at the Galleries of Contemporary Art (GOCA) Thursday at 5 p.m.

Shearn typically works with outdoor installation pieces, tens of thousands of square feet wide and over 100 feet tall. He permanently moved back to the Colorado Springs area in 2023 and decided to change things up.

"Imagine you fell down a microscope," Shearn said.

His gallery show, Psycullescence, aims to make the viewer feel like they've been shrunk to the microscopic level and are walking among the life forms that roam there. It also works as a metaphor for the pieces themeselves. Though some are around 10 feet tall, the exhibit is by far the smallest in his portfolio so it fit in the gallery medium.

"It's a really unique work that people might look at it and say, 'Oh, that's Patrick Shearn! That's poetic Kinetics!' But, it's using a little bit of a different vocabulary," said GOCA director and Curator Joy Armstrong.

GOCA is located inside of the ENT Center for the Arts (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs). You can find Shearn's portfolio on his website, Poetic Kinetics.

GOCA also plans to host an art fashion show February 28, with each outfit inspired by Shearn's Psycullescence exhibit.