By Toni Tresca
Artists Kristen Fogarty and Meredith Steele are creating a bit of their own magic one brushstroke at a time.
The duo created Magik Studios, and after working out of a home studio for several years, they are excited to open their first permanent studio near Sloan’s Lake at 4401 W. Colfax Ave.
“We both agree art has the power to transform like magic, and our work is about collaboration with each other and our clients,” Fogarty said. “The M in Magik is for Meredith, and the K is for Kristen. We’re both inspired by the world around us — nature, people, experiences — and are both mixed-media artists.”
Fogarty and Steele met through a mutual friend who set them up on a “blind friend date” in August 2019 while working in Denver. To pursue careers as artists, both women — Steele from Virginia and Fogarty from Georgia — moved to the area from the East Coast. They connected over their shared interests and kept in touch after their first meeting. “It happened very organically,” Steele said.
“There was over a year between our meeting and us starting Magik. We definitely gave ourselves the time to think about what we wanted Magik to be and how to make it work for us.”
Magik Studios’ strategy is simple: enhance environments. They collaborate with business and residential clients to develop concepts that elevate the current surroundings of a space by painting colorful murals on both indoor and outdoor walls.
“Between the two of us, we’ve created so many different types of art and enjoy the variation of projects we’ve completed through Magik,” Steele said. “(We) really enjoy taking a collaborative approach with clients that allows them to bring a vision to life and create a design that feels unique to them or their business.”
Additionally, the team has discovered that the diversity of their skills, including Fogarty’s proficiency in graphic design and Steele’s background in painting and mixed media at her solo studio, Meredith Steele Art, is a benefit that enables them to serve a wide range of clients.
“We work with paint, but we digitally design our concepts first, so we have capabilities that go well beyond murals,” Fogarty said. “We aim to make our work approachable and uplifting, always taking our client’s vision and aesthetic into consideration when designing. We want to make art that draws people in and inspires the everyday person.”
By moving into a permanent studio located on the corner of West Colfax and Tennyson, only a few blocks from Sloan’s Lake, Magik Studios hopes they can create a space where they work while feeling inspired.
“We landed at this location because the space is exactly what we envisioned,” Fogarty said. “We’re both residents of the west side of Denver and love Sloan’s Lake. It simply felt right. It will equally be a workspace and showroom for our work, inside and out. We have creative freedom and plan to add some Magik to the block.”
The multidisciplinary art studio’s services include custom hand-painted murals, commissioned artwork and mixed-media installations. Magik Studios looks forward to working with partners in the community and hopes to be a beacon of creativity in the neighborhood.
“With fine art and design backgrounds, our services and capabilities are vast,” Steele said. “Murals have been our focus, but we’re excited to be able to offer and expand even more.”
Learn more about Magik Studios at magikstudios.co.
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