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Dillavou Curation LLC, Colorado Springs, CO (2026)

06/05/2026

Tonight!
5-7:30pm on the top floor of COATI Uprise

Join us for the First Friday Art Walk featuring "What Kinda Brown Are You?" Directed by Kevin Persaud!

9 local artists exploring identity.
Free, all ages.
All Night Happy Hour Specials at Ephemera

06/01/2026

Meet the final artist joining us for "What Kinda Brown Are You? 2026 at COATI!

Estavon is an artist who specializes in photography, writing, and poetry. He alchemizes these mediums to create potent visual art in which the metaphors are both visual and written. He has been feautured poet in the Colorado Springs area, and is currently working as a full time photographer seeking high end concert and modeling aesthetics. Estavon pursues the magic in the mundane and finds the best inspiration in the flower that grows from a crack in the concrete.

Estavon says,"This piece is a confession projected onto canvas. A cry for help for the crisis that has already passed. A memoir for the despair felt at that pivotal moment of no return. I wanted to hold the hand of su***de and have it lead me to a place where I could feel better.

I was listening to people confessing their bad choices that led them to become great addicts. They reflected on the moment when life suddenly became quiet and they were about to fall into a sleep from which they would never wake. That sense of peace that they described seemed like the relief I always wanted to experience.

I imagined the feeling. How a bird feels flying is how I imagined my last moments. It'd all be done swiftly and simply as a drink of water. The pain would release and I would no longer have to worry about the pain being reserved for me in the future. I knew I had the right amount of pills in a drawer I never open.

This is what ran through my mind in the moment I decided to keep living. I was going to destroy all of this, every moment of childhood joy, and every flower I've ever seen would die with me. All these photos are the moments where I felt the most alive looking at something beautiful. But yet, my final scene would have been staring blankly at a boring ceiling.

I was closer than I've ever been, but I am thankful I was not close enough.

And it is my hope that I always exist to take more photos of the things I love the most."

June 5th Mezzanine 5pm
June 13th 4:30pm Highlands Artist meet and greet

05/31/2026

Meet another creative behind WKBAY? which so happens to be ME, your friendly art curator.

Jasmine Dillavou is a Boricua artist, performer and educator based out of Colorado Springs. She has shown work nationwide and recently completed her time as the Artist in Residence with Olamina Earthseed Residency NM. Dillavou seeks to expand her role as a cultural storyteller, using her artworks to pass intergenerational wisdom and honor the voices of her communities. She works in socially engaged performances and semi-devised scores as a guide for re-shaping our stories. She believes the artist's job is to shift deficit narratives and disrupt unjust systems by imaging a world where everyone is liberated and celebrated.

I have been running the curation program inside and since the buildings inception with a focus on uplifting BIPOC and q***r makers across COS.

My work for WKBAY? is an exploration in becoming an ancestor. Doing the undoing. Recognizing the women before that made fire, ferocity and fight. Knowing I am armored by spirit and ritual. That is What Kinda Brown I Am, a quilt of all the women before me.

June 5th 5pm COATI Mezzanine
June 13th 4:30pm Ephemera Highlands Artist Cocktail Event

05/31/2026

Meet the creative director behind WKBAY? and one of the featured artists, Kevin!

Kevin Shinelikar Persaud is Bronx born of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. His parents are from Guyana, the sugarcane first nation. Coming from a long line of matriarchs that communed with the spirits in whispers and incense, prayer and intention, dreams and fortunes; his existence is political. His guides may say he sees the color and light radiating in everyone.

His artistic practice is protest. Although classically trained in San Francisco and honing his skill in Denver, Persaud creates pieces that are ephemeral. Pieces that are fragile and won't last using non-traditional substrates. If handled incorrectly they may break or rip, or give you splinters and hurt you. Taking abstract ideas and making tangible, tactile works is a very intentional meditation on the struggles of communication.

WHAT KINDA BROWN ARE YOU is a study on true self and what that means in a US society. A society formed as symptom to colonial ideals and misguided intention. Gnarled, contorted to simple types and classification that haunt like ghosts passed and forgotten. How can an artist truly know themselves unless they shuffled off their responsibility. Responsibility as forethought to uphold misjudges and smudged mirrors. Shackled by principles unspoken, but whispered heavy with sigh.

“I am responsible for everything … except for my very responsibility, for I am not the foundation of my being.” - Jean Paul Sartre

WHAT KINDA BROWN ARE YOU is the unmasking. It is the freedom so heavily hung from our necks. Allowing artists to gauge and self reflect prioriti- Create, ingest, to grant air to the small child who wandered before foundations were laid. It is an act of remembrance and celebration of evolutions of self. In jest, how can I create without my self? The self created by other. The projection over the mask.
June 5th 5pm at COATI
June 13th 4:30pm at Ephemera Highlands

05/30/2026

Meet another creative behind the "WKBAY?" Exhibition opening First Friday!

Paulie Flowers (They/Them) Is a local artist that grew up in Fountain Colorado. They served in the USMC from 2015-2019. They graduated from PPSC in 2025 with an AA and are currently working on a Visual Arts Degree at UCCS (Hopefully soon to be CUCS). Their work focuses on how contemporary events affect their intersectionality of being a diasporic Latino, trans veteran.
Paulie says,"I am a veteran; I joined the Marines the same year the United States legalized gay marriage.

So is my dad; who was drafted in the Vietnam War which sacrificed his community.

As well as my mother; who is tougher than me and has many more miles with a ruck and gun.

All for the rights we fought for to be stripped away from the ones we love.
I am Latino; whose family existed here longer than the lines they’ve drawn in the sand.

So I am brown; I will never be able to fit into the purity that they promise.
As well as white; because they will also erase an entire part of me when it’s convenient.
All for our government to pretend we do not belong on the land with the people they divided.

I am trans; because I am, it’s funny that people pointed out the signs my entire life.

So are fellow vets; one in five of us served for the freedoms we supposedly have.

As well as Latinos; protect the dolls wasn’t started for the people who share my shade of skin.

All for us to become the new cannon fodder in this distractive culture war.

It’s the same old story of the stripes and stars.

Which holds sacred the categories of red, white or blue.That preaches fauxism to different beliefs.

Ignoring the calloused hands of those who build it.

Community is not stitched together with threads that come undone.

Our flavors leach into the water of the pot we share.
I know what I fight for, that is my America, and it is you."

See Paulies piece, "Torn" in the show opening June 5th 5pm at COATI

05/29/2026

Meet another amazing artist behind "WKBAY?" 2026 opening at

QueenVashti Studios

Vashti is a Colorado-based multidisciplinary artist whose work explores identity, vulnerability, mental health, and human connection through bold portraiture and nature-inspired elements. As a q***r Black woman and neurodivergent artist, their work reflects the process of embracing every version of themselves while encouraging empathy and compassion for others. Alongside their art practice, Vashti facilitates creative wellness workshops for mothers and caregivers, creating supportive spaces that use art as a tool for healing, reflection, and resilience.

Vashti says, "There are different versions of myself that I’m finally learning to accept fully. Beyond the color of my skin, I am someone who loves nature, leads with kindness. I have often made myself smaller to keep peace, but through my art I am learning that softness and humanity are not weaknesses. At the core of it all, I am simply human — a girl trying to move through the world with compassion. My work invites others to reconnect with their own humanity and lead with empathy toward themselves and one another."

See art by Vashti on the COATI Mezzanine First Friday 5pm!

514 S. Tejon Street

05/28/2026

Meet the artists of this year's WKBAY? opening June 5th 5pm!

Lavae Reed is an artist from Colorado and has used art as an outlet to express himself as well
as shine light on matters that need awareness. His oeuvre has always been about expressing
himself on a deeper level while exploring darker themes. Lavae creates surrealistic
drawings/paintings that evoke emotions by illustrating stories and scenarios that are based on his own personal experiences. Lavae’s goal is to shine light on the darkest parts of himself and hopefully inspire others to do the same.

Lavae says, "What KInd of Brown Are You? The kind of brown I am creates an image of stereotypes that has made me feel like I couldn’t be anything else when that couldn’t be further from the truth. As a kid I took notice of the people around me and their lifestyles and had convinced myself that there was no other way to be. I have friends and family members who are gang affiliated, who sleep around, drug addicts, drug dealers, alcoholics, and people who inflict
violence; these are all stereotypes that are associated with the kind of brown that I am.

I created this image of who I thought I would be and chased after it without realising that this is a
version of myself that I loathe, so I tried to kill it by just being me. I managed to stop drinking
and partaking in drugs, I separated myself from friends who rep certain gangs, and I worked on
becoming a stronger and kinder person by straying away from violence. I made so much
progress over the years and I would like to say that I’m proud of myself. But, I have gotten into so
many fights, I drank and smoked while pushing others. This piece is an illustration of me facing a part of myself that has fallen into the stereotypes that are associated with the kind of brown that I am. Groovy Tony is a gritty remorseless
persona/version of myself and Mr. Morale is a more healed and self aware version of myself.
This piece is about internal conflict."

See work by at COATI June 5th and 13th!

05/28/2026

We are excited to introduce another artist behind the 2026 WKBAY? Exhibition.

Welcome Kenny Idleman
Kenny Idleman certainly has various credentials. Multiple institutions, notably Pikes Peak State College and Colorado State University-Fort Collins, have sent them multiple high quality pieces of paper in very thick envelopes, though one was admittedly lost in the mail. Now leading the jewelry and metalsmithing program at Pikes Peak State College, teaching at Bemis School of Art, and hosting and organizing the weekly “Coyoetry” event, Kenny has completed the full-circle long-con, meticulously and advantageously manipulating their way into a career in the arts over their long and colorful life.

Kenny takes particular interest in the visceral physical movement of metal (i.e. raising vessels, chasing and repousse, synclastic and anticlastic forming, etc…), though they can surely learn you up on a wide range of other super cool techniques with equally impressive names.

Beyond that Kenny is passionate about the sweeter things in life, namely baked goods, tiny kisses, pretty much anything with a good story, artiodactyla, coordinating outfits with his partner, and living vicariously through his many, many children.
Kenny says, "My brown has been blended, battered, bruised, and buried. My brown has also been bolstered, emboldened and beheld in its own becoming. Brought forth as these beautiful, fruitingbodies, my brown was put on display for any and all to behold. But my network of nourishment reaches far beneath and beyond into an unseen subterranean richness that only we know. We are the fruiting bodies, clever and constant, casting spores, reaching outwards; but we are also the hyphae, holding tight to each other throughout this duff between us. Through all the death, all this decay we find each other, past, present, and future, still reaching inwards, always willing to share a little sugar — a little sweetness that keeps me teeming with life.

See Kenny's art First Friday at COATI and June 13th 4:30pm for the free Artist Cocktail Hour!

05/28/2026

Meet the artists behind WKBAY? 2026

Introducing Chloe Kelly!
Chloe is a Colorado-based multidisciplinary artist specializing in UV-reactive oil painting and large-scale mural work. Painting for over a decade and working professionally in recent years, her practice explores connection, energy, and emotional resonance through vivid color contrast and layered visual composition. Her work invites viewers into immersive experiences that reveal how seemingly separate elements are deeply interconnected.

Her public art experience includes the Pueblo Basketball Court Mural, a selected traffic box design for the City of Centennial, and a commissioned community room mural for the new recreation center in Grand Junction. As an independent artist, Chloe continues expanding her practice throughout Colorado, creating work that bridges contemporary abstraction with experiential storytelling.

Chloe says," My work explores connection — the unseen threads that link memory, identity, place, and feeling. Through UV-reactive oil paint and vivid contrasting hues, I create immersive visual experiences that invite viewers to feel the energy between things rather than simply observe them. Color becomes its own language, revealing emotional frequencies that often exist beyond words.

A Single Touch reflects the feeling of reaching toward something deeply rooted yet only partially understood. Growing up knowing fragments of my heritage while never fully experiencing its cultural depth has created a sense of both intimacy and distance — an ancestral static, where connection is present but indistinct, like a signal just beyond clarity.

The central figure reaches toward a moment of contact, suspended between curiosity and recognition. Surrounding imagery acts as echoes of home — fragments of inherited memory, cultural suggestion, and emotional familiarity that exist even without full understanding.

This piece speaks to the quiet longing to connect with what has always been part of you, and the transformative possibility held within even a single touch."

Follow her work at .curious and see her piece on the COATI Uprise Mezzanine June 6th!

02/20/2026

"Family Portrait"
By Paulie Flowers
$1250

Available at COATI Uprise downtown
Open 7 days a week starting at 11am

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