Fine Arts Critic
Ray Mark Rinaldi
Ray Mark Rinaldi (media@rayrinaldi.com) is a veteran arts writer and critic based in Denver.
All Stories

Ikea chairs were turned into art for the latest Arvada Center exhibit, and you can buy one
The exhibit puts on display one work of art from a local artist along with the chair each artist uses in their studio. Visitors are invited to camp out in...

Rinaldi: Cleon Peterson show at MCA can be hard to look at, but it forces us to examine the darkness within
Again and again in his current show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, he depicts black humanoid figures doing brutal, violent things to white humanoid figures.

Rinaldi: At DAM’s blockbuster Degas exhibit, genius proves both a blessing and burden
"Degas: A Passion for Perfection" is a blockbuster show in spite of itself, a must-see that does its homework and serves up plenty for others.

Five Denver arts groups to face off reality-show style in hopes of landing cultural grant
Just about anything can happen when five arts groups square off against one another for $55,000 in funding before a live audience and a panel of judges.

At the DAM, art tracks a cultural exchange predating the internet by centuries
"Linking Asia" shows just how influential trade can be, using art as its evidence.

Opera Colorado’s most unusual love story sets a tragic Holocaust tale to music
"Steal a Pencil for Me" is set in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II.

Rinaldi: The Curtis Center’s “Open Space: Finite Frontier” depicts the West with an honest detachment
Are the windmills, municipal trappings and livestock pens that dot the West obnoxious invaders or welcome amenities?

Rinaldi: Spark Gallery’s latest exhibition is a reunion — and a memorial — for Colorado’s displaced galleries
"The New Underground" is meant to remind Denverites cashing in on their suddenly valuable homes that something was lost in the great economic transition of the 2010s.

“Hamilton,” Kirkland reopening, Degas and more art events to look forward to in Denver this winter
Denver's fine arts scene is offering a lot of promising reasons to get out of the cold this winter.

Rinaldi: Coors Western art show honors the past but offers cautions for the future
The Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale, as it is known far and wide, is possibly the largest event on the calendar for artists who depict the region’s lifestyle and...