A Denver artist who spent nearly 25 years in a corporate career is now working with beeswax, pigment, concrete, copper, and fire to create paintings named after real women who fought their way through mental health and substance use treatment. Lauren Glad's debut solo exhibition, titled What Breaks Through, opened October 3 at Gallery 190 inside NOVEL RiNo at 1350 40th Street, with proceeds supporting a longtime Denver-area behavioral health nonprofit.
Glad turned to fine art, choosing encaustic painting as a therapeutic outlet to process grief, according to 9News. She discovered the medium on social media in 2020 and took an online encaustic art class, later telling 9News that the pandemic gave her the time to practice the craft. For each piece, she mixes pigment into beeswax, applies the wax to wooden panels, and fuses every layer with a blowtorch — a tool she described, per the same report, as her paintbrush and her favorite part of the process. Some of her paintings contain as many as 100 layers.
Paintings Named for Real Stories of Recovery
Every painting in the show is named in honor of a woman who received help from AllHealth Network, the nonprofit benefiting from the exhibit's proceeds. One piece, titled Sara Beginning Again, is named for a woman who received substance-use treatment through the organization after losing her job and her ability to care for her boys, 9News reports; she later rebuilt her life after treatment. A large installation titled Samantha carries a more personal meaning for Glad — it is named for the daughter she never had, after she and her husband decided not to have children. Glad has two bonus children, and she has said she crumbled after making that decision, though she now says creating art feels lighter and more inspiring than it once did.
AllHealth Network is a nonprofit that provides mental health support with services throughout the south Denver metro area, offering outpatient therapy, intensive outpatient therapy, residential programs, and crisis stabilization. Founded in 1955, the Englewood-headquartered organization now employs approximately 500 staff members and serves approximately 20,000 consumers across the Denver metro area annually, according to OPEN MINDS. In August 2024, the organization partnered with the Harmony Foundation to fully integrate residential substance use disorder treatment into its regional behavioral health network, and it was named a recipient of the national 2025 Top Workplaces USA award by Energage, an honor based on employee survey feedback.
Why the Funding Push Matters Now
Jessica Dunbar, AllHealth Network's chief strategy and growth officer, said the money raised through the art show will help the organization reach more people, according to 9News. Dunbar said the funding will allow AllHealth Network to expand behavioral health and substance use treatment services for more Coloradans.
That expansion comes as demand for care has surged statewide. Total behavioral health care claims in Colorado more than doubled from 2.9 million in 2019 to 6.3 million in 2025, while the number of individual residents seeking services grew from 450,000 to 720,000, according to the Center for Improving Value in Health Care. The America's Health Rankings reports that 23.2% of Colorado women ages 18–44 reported frequent mental distress, defined as 14 or more days of poor mental health per month, using 2023–2024 data.
At the same time, community providers are contending with shrinking federal support. The termination of pandemic-era supplemental behavioral health grants resulted in roughly $250 million in lost federal public and behavioral health funding across Colorado, affecting 60 programs statewide; $24 million had been designated to programs involving crisis resolution, substance-use recovery and mental-illness support, according to Atlantic Health Strategies. Colorado's Behavioral Health Administration, meanwhile, is responsible for access and coordination.
An Ancient Medium for a Modern Message
Encaustic painting itself has roots stretching back millennia. The word comes from the ancient Greek enkaustikos, meaning to burn in, and the technique dates to at least the 5th century BCE in Ancient Greece and Egypt, where artists fused heated beeswax and pigments onto wooden panels and even ship hulls, according to the Museum of Encaustic Art. For Glad, that ancient process of heat, layering, and transformation has become a way to visually render stories of breakdown and rebuilding.
What Breaks Through is open every Thursday through Sunday at NOVEL RiNo, near 40th and Walnut streets, through November 5. The exhibit marks Glad's first show since debuting as an artist, with proceeds going in part to AllHealth Network's mission of expanding access to care across the Denver metro area.
