Rainbow (Desperate)

Rainbow (Desperate) is an extroverted expression of longing—an urgent desire for love, togetherness, and shared experience. It reaches outward, seeking connection, collision, and a way to mark time alongside others. The rainbow motif emerges from Tucek’s practice of automatic drawing, where instinct and immediacy guide the work through a relinquishing of control.

For Understudy, that process expands into both collaboration and scale. The 18-foot inflatable form is intentionally oversized in response to the gallery’s architecture, pressing against its constraints and emphasizing its visibility. Surrounding drawings and ceramic works extend this language across material and scale, creating a conversation between the monumental and the intimate. It embraces a sense of awkwardness while drawing from the language of spectacle: parade floats and oversized ornaments that are nostalgic, excessive, and delightfully unnecessary. In this way, the work leans into a kind of joyful absurdity—something collectively understood, emotionally resonant, and unapologetically ridiculous.

The work carries associations of impermanence, fragility, instability, and play, reflecting Tucek’s ongoing interest in temporality and how meaning shifts through memory and experience. While open to interpretation, it remains grounded in a sincere engagement with joy, not as performance but as something actively claimed and shared. The familiarity of the rainbow invites immediate connection, allowing each viewer to find their own meaning within it.

With the addition of Undulation (a live performance opening night), Tucek invited dancers and a musician to collaborate by responding to a written score and visuals. Through choreography, the artist asks the dancers to consider how much we long for, and how much we gain from collision with others. For Tucek, this first time as creative director feels like an expansion of her drawing practice, by drawing in collaboration with bodies in space.

Kaitlyn Tucek lives and works in Denver, CO. From Long Island, NY, Tucek graduated from Pratt Institute in 2006 and was awarded a Master’s from CUNY Queens College in 2013. Tucek is a multi-disciplinary artist. Tucek’s work has been shown in New York, Aspen, Texas, Palm Springs and Denver, including exhibits at La Napoule Foundation, The Dairy Arts Center, Leon Gallery, Friend of a Friend and K Contemporary Gallery. Tucek also works in education at The Clyfford Still Museum and Arapahoe Community College. Tucek has been featured in Hyperallergic, SW Contemporary, The Aspen Times, Westword, Denver Life Magazine, Modern in Denver, CPR’s Denverite, and was named one of Denver’s top 5 artists to watch and collect by 5280 Magazine.