This May, PlatteForum was generously awarded funding from RiNo Art District to support our upcoming Resident Artist, Lexy Ho-Tai, and our Arts & Community Fair event!

Lexy Ho-Tai is PlatteForum’s 4th and final Resident Artist in the 2023/2024 season. Lexy’s work immerses viewers in a surreal and playful world of monsters, puppets, costumes, and animations that celebrate otherness, world-building, imagination, and self-expression.

Her exhibition, “How Strange it is to be Anything at All” is lovingly crafted, and will feature slightly existential soft sculptures, puppets, wearables, and drawings which will come to life in a new stop-motion animation and installation. Throughout Lexy’s residency, she has worked with our ArtLab interns to create mixed media wearable monster costumes and explored the following questions:

What does it mean to be human? How can we free our minds? How can our bodies be home?

Lexy invites viewers into a space where you can rest, create, and be amongst the many beings here, which are extensions and mirrors of ourselves. After all, everything is made up and we can be anything at all.

Funding from the RiNo Arts District has made this project possible, allowing PlatteForum to pay sound artists to collaborate with Lexy. Her show at PlatteForum’s Annex Gallery at TAXI on July 26th from 6-8pm will be an innovative and experimental twist on her recent body of work.

Want to hear more? Join us for Lexy’s Artist Talk on July 30th 6-7pm at our Annex Gallery at TAXI.

Lexy’s work will also live outside of PlatteForum’s Annex Gallery, at PlatteForum’s Arts & Community Fair event on August 4 from 2-6pm in Mestizo-Curtis Park. This event is a “block party” highlighting local artists, PlatteForum’s community, and partner arts organizations in the area supported by VectraBank, RiNo Art District, Darrell Watson’s City Council District 9 office, Denver Coalition for Active Living Microgrants, and the Curtis Park Registered Neighborhood Organization.

Our goal is to bring our community the opportunity to get to know nearby organizations and local artists, create fundraising opportunities, celebrate the arts and our youth, but most importantly, have fun! This will be an exciting, inclusive arts and community event celebrating the diverse work of Denver's non-profit community. This family-friendly and open to the public event is a chance for us to raise local awareness about these organizations and artists, while also fostering a spirit of collaboration and community engagement.

The event will have over 20 artist vendors, music, food, drinks, crafts and art workshops, games, and will host fellow arts organizations doing critical work in the neighborhood - Creative Strategies for Change, El Sistema, and Art Garage!

Come out for an afternoon of connecting with the arts and community of Mestizo-Curtis Park on Sunday August 4 from 2-6pm! Bring your family and friends!

Participating Artists:

Lucy Holtsnider - Winter 2025 PlatteForum Resident

Kaylee Bender - Spring 2025 PlatteForum Resident

Catie Michel - Summer 2025 PlatteForum Resident