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How many exhibition works:
- 20 - 29
Exhibition Total Value:
- $20k - $30k
Bitfactory Gallery
Presents
Deconstructing the Zeitgeist
Dec 19, 2025 – Jan 10, 2026
DENVER, CO — Bitfactory Gallery carries us into the new year with a powerful new show, on view Dec 19, 2025 – Jan 10, 2026, at 851 Santa Fe Drive. Deconstructing the Zeitgeist features abstract work by Jude Barton, Clint Eccher, and Brayden Espinosa. Each artist brings their distinct approach to composition, mark-making and material, creating a dynamic exhibition that feels both rigorous and alive yet disquieting.
Opening Reception: December 19, 6–9 PM
Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 11 AM–4 PM
First Friday Art Walk: January 2, 6–9 PM
As gallerist and curator, Bill Thomason, explains, “The dialogue between Barton’s intentional, minimalistic, geometric abstractions and the brash, charged, almost reckless brushstrokes of Espinosa’s abstract expressionism, anchored by Eccher’s darker, urban, and dense neo-expressionism sitting between them, creates a dynamic field of exchange without tipping into visual excess.” Thomason goes on to say, “The tension, the push/pull, and underlying sense of uneasy comfort I wanted the viewer to experience required a very specific dialogue between the works.”
Barton has a strong affinity with architecture, music, and geometric axioms, referring to her work as Modern Formalism—an assertion of and revitalization of form. Her hard-edge geometric paintings perform a deconstruction of the zeitgeist at the level of form itself. On the surface, the precise lines and simplicity of contained color fields present a visual vocabulary of stability and rational order by which traditional contemporary culture imagines itself to be, infiltrated by an underpainting of fugitive washes and random minimal marks, imprints and patterns that both enable and undo the authority of the geometric surface.
Eccher works within his “tiered painting” method, which involves layering artworks on top of each other, using LED lights to reveal and modify the bottom piece of art. As an artist who is increasingly focused on truth, fairness and justice, his work ranges from openly bold textual statements to exposing all sides of a subject as objectively as possible. As in this show, his goal is to stimulate intellectual work and critical thinking in the viewer to find peace of mind within the grey areas of a subject.
Espinosa takes an intuitive approach to his deeply expressive art, allowing imagery to fall naturally into place, mimicking found energy and light to give each piece its own distinct voice. The work in this show is a visual digestion of slippage and escalation happening simultaneously within our current social fabric. Through this tension, the work seeks to hold the unstable moment where clarity and ambiguity coexist, revealing the quiet forces shaping the spaces between us.
Bitfactory Gallery is located at 851 Santa Fe Drive in the heart of Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe. The building also houses Bitfactory Studios with the vision of providing a helpful, friendly working atmosphere for artists and the Block Gallery, a pop-up gallery space available to rent in one-, three-, or seven-day blocks. Gallery hours are Tuesday–Saturday, 11 AM–4 PM, and by appointment. For additional information, please contact Bill Thomason at info@bitfactory.net, or (303) 862-9367, visit www.bitfactory.net, or follow on Facebook/Instagram @bitfactorygallery and on X at @bitfactoryg.
Curator :
Jude Barton –
In an era that asserts its own coherence through data grids, branding systems, and institutional ideas of morality and ethics; that structure and its authority are undermined as challenges of shifting paradigms regarding the good, the bad and the ugly, push up against it. With respect to these societal and civic movements, my hard-edge geometric paintings perform a deconstruction of the zeitgeist at the level of form itself.
These works do not illustrate deconstruction; they enact it, exposing structure as always and already divided.
On the surface, the precise lines and simplicity of contained color fields present a visual vocabulary of stability and rational order by which traditional contemporary culture imagines itself to be. However, much of my work has become infiltrated by an underpainting of fugitive washes and random minimal marks, imprints and patterns that both enable and undo the authority of the geometric surface.
Clint Eccher –
As unjust and infuriating as it can be to live in today’s world, it does give an artist a lot of material to comment on and create artwork from.
Exactly 10 years ago, I came out with my Tiered Painting method of creating art before being invited to fly to Austria to show the work. Since that time, my techniques in creating such original works of art, as well as other static pieces, have evolved. And what perfect timing? There is a plethora to comment on, and I now have many new ways to comment.
A philosophy of mine is that humans want to be able to pick between “A” or “B” because it’s easy, there’s a predetermined belief to follow, and they don’t have to do any critical thinking. But the truth of the world is that neither “A” or “B” rarely, if ever, satisfy all the conditions we seek. Usually, the mind has to do some critical thinking to come up with the grey area between “A” or “B” to find what works perfectly for us.
My goal in Deconstructing the Zeitgeist is to get the viewer to consider multiple options and/or circumstances to a subject and to work to find the grey area that works because there is a peace of mind that comes with having done such intellectual work we’re satisfied with.
Brayden Espinosa –
My work is a visual digestion of simultaneous slippage and escalation within our current social fabric. I observe the energies that confine, separate, and linger—like smoke suspended between us—and translate into its own color and form. Repetitive indicators of human nature act as guides, while brief, elusive glimpses of something else slip through the surface. Each painting becomes both a bridge and a path along these shifting borders, recording encounters through layers of acrylic. Action takes hold as sharp decisive marks emerging from a haze of color. Through this tension, the work seeks to hold the unstable moment where clarity and ambiguity coexist, revealing the quiet forces shaping the spaces between us.
Curatorial Statement –
The impetus for this exhibition came to me nearly a year ago. I had a broad sense of what I wanted an abstract exhibition to look and feel like, but the work was in determining which artists could pull those still-forming ideas out of my mind and place that tension cohesively onto the walls of the gallery.
Originally, I had Kristina Davies, Clint Eccher, and Brayden Espinosa in mind. I believed that both the similarities and the differences in the way they paint, along with their respective compositional approaches, would create a compelling dichotomy, not only in the meta, but at the object level, in the physical presence of the paintings themselves. When Davies ultimately had to step away from the exhibition, I made the decision to move forward with Eccher and Espinosa rather than trying to fit a third artist into the conversation.
While I had hoped to include a female artist in this exhibition, I was unwilling to compromise the integrity of the curatorial vision by substituting work that did not fully participate in the divergence I was seeking. The tension, push and pull, and underlying sense of unease I wanted the viewer to experience required a very specific dialogue between the works. One that could not be resolved through representation alone.
Several months later, and rather serendipitously, Jude Barton reached out to me about the possibility of exhibiting at Bitfactory, and everything fell into place. All three artists work within an abstract mode, yet each brings a distinctly different approach to composition, mark-making, and material. Those differences create a dynamic drive and pull for the viewer, resulting in an exhibition that feels both rigorous and alive.
The dialogue between Barton’s intentional, minimalistic, geometric abstractions and the brash, charged, almost reckless brushstrokes of Espinosa’s abstract expressionism, anchored by Eccher’s darker, urban, and dense neo-primitivism sitting between them, creates a dynamic field of exchange without tipping into visual excess.
851 Santa Fe Dr Denver, CO 80204
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