From left to right: Alicia Pope - Dead Bird; August Balderrama - Resistance; Brittany Loya - Burial Nest; Evan Kosakowski - You Are Part Of Me; Megan Hates - Images from Ireland: The Pier; Sakinah Ben-Masaud - medium cranberry limeade with strawberries and a small lemonade no ice; Sam Freese - Climbing Mt. Titon

guilty 2026

April 2-16 2026 | juried by derrick velasquez

opening reception | March 13, 2025 – 3:00-5:00 pm

The annual CU Denver student show, Guilty, is a showcase of students’ technical skills and inventiveness across all media. While there is no overarching theme to this exhibition, Guilty is still a testament to the curiosity, effort, and ambition that CU Denver students integrate into their respective artistic practices.

Artists featured in Guilty 2026 include Emilee Korach, Alicia Pope, Sakinah Ben-Masaud, Racheal Bennett, Anna Kates, Mia Myca, Sage Deal, Marin Perkins, Ai Huynh, Errow Collins, Lily Minkler, Maya Olivier, August Blackmer, Mars Lee, River Mastel, Liana Ruedel, Sam Freese, Nechco, Gregory Pakieser, Vivian Sprague, Erica Lapp, Brisa Andrade, Megan Hatak, Onyx Wieden, Tutugirl Bamba, Jueun Kang, August Balderrama, Evan Kosakowski, Isabel Wolf, Brittany Loya, Jackson Miller, and Margaret Brennan de Jesus.

For access to full artist statements from each of the artists, click here.

This exhibition is made possible by CU Denver’s College of Arts & Media

meet the juror

Derrick Velasquez is an artist and exhibition organizer who lives and works in Denver, Colorado. He was a 2017 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors and a 2019 MacDowell Fellow. Derrick has served on the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs and the boards of Denver nonprofits Tilt West, Union Hall, and Minerva Projects. His most recent exhibitions include solo exhibitions at The Herron School of Art and Design, The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Robischon Gallery (Denver), Pentimenti (Philadelphia), Carvalho Park (Brooklyn), GalerieRobertson Ares (Montreal), and Hawthorn Contemporary (Milwaukee) as well as group exhibitions at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Transmitter in New York. Derrick founded Yes Ma’am Projects, an artist-run gallery in the basement of his Athmar Park home and Friend of a Friend, a project space that began in 2021 at the Evans School, a mostly vacant schoolhouse in Downtown Denver and has since relocated to Platte River and 38th Ave. He has organized exhibitions at the MCA in Denver, Trestle Gallery in New York, The Carnegie in Covington, Kentucky and at Galerie Robertson Arés in Montreal.