Mission
EDGE Gallery is contemporary, non-profit, co-op art gallery dedicated to artists outside the domain of commercial art venues. Because we are not dependent on sales for our survival, we have the freedom to pursue more experimental modes of expression. Our primary objectives are to celebrate individuality and uniqueness, to encourage our shared vision, and to maintain our intensity and integrity in addressing the often contradictory messages occurring in contemporary art.
More Information
As an independent exhibition space managed by artists, EDGE continues to support those working at the margins of material, content and technology. Our mission provides fresh challenges to the public audience. Over the years members have been instrumental in presenting important experimental work in our region. The EDGE membership has sponsored political events, poetry readings, and musical events, in addition to regular exhibitions of contemporary art.
The History of Edge
EDGE was born from the mind and spirit of Colorado artist, Ken Peterson. In 1979 Peterson opened the first of a series of galleries, which over a period of years included 2455 Fifteenth Street, The Packinghouse and Progresso. Peterson’s galleries featured local and regional artists, and contemporary “non-commercial” and alternative art. He gave emerging artists visibility and provided a space for graduating art students to exhibit their skills.
In 1985, Ken founded EDGE housed at 31st and Larimer Streets. In 1990 the gallery moved one door down and became a cooperative artist-run gallery and it remains a co-op today. Over the years, Peterson invited many artists whose work he admired and who had exhibited in earlier galleries to show at EDGE.
In 1992, the gallery moved to a building that was originally occupied by a pharmacy and subsequently a print shop located at 3658 Navajo Street, located in the same block as Pirate Art Gallery, Next, and Zip 37, and Bug Theater.
At the end of 2016, due to gentrification and rapidly rising rents in Denver’s burgeoning LoHi neighborhood, EDGE closed its doors on Navajo Street and began the search for a new location. The Navajo St area in the Highlands had been a major Denver alternative art scene in the 80’s and 90’s because of the low rents and supportive artist landlords. After a long journey, EDGE landed at 7001 W. Colfax in Lakewood in a small store front and opened its doors with a members’ show on November 3, 2017. The West Colfax 40 West Arts District had begun to attract other alternative and co-op galleries who had been displaced with its arts friendly mission becoming an area that Navajo Street once served.
From 2019 to 2022, Edge was located in Pasternack’s Art Hub. Originally a lumber yard building and later a pawn shop, Pasternack housed five art galleries: Edge, Next, Core, Kanon, and Flourish Galleria.
In April of 2022, Edge moved into its current space at 6501 W. Colfax Ave., Lakewood. The building, originally the Denver Drumstick restaurant, holds the offices and art gallery for the 40 West Arts District, as well as Core New Art Space, Next Gallery, Kanon Collective, Lakewood Arts, and Red Herring Art & Supply.
National and regional critics have reviewed work by individual members and the gallery as a whole. The New Art Examiner, ArtNews, Art in America, The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and Westword have published reviews of exhibitions, and channels KBDI/12 and FOX/4 have featured the gallery on television. Since 1996 when the gallery was awarded 501(c)(3) non-profit status, it has received support for numerous years from the Colorado Council for the Arts and Humanities (funded through the National Endowment for the Arts), the Denver Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, Meow Wolf, 40West Arts district and other funding sources.