The Latest

 
 
Strong Spirits Carry Us Forward, Epiphany Couch 🗓️January 4—26, 2025 📍Carnation Contemporary When our ancestors call to us, how do we respond? This question lies at the heart of Epiphany Couch’s installation, Strong Spirits Carry Us Forward. Originally presented by Dreaming in Public at the Seattle Art Fair, this expanded iteration pays tribute to Couch’s grandmother and great-grandfather, honoring the enduring legacy of generational knowledge. Modeled after her grandmother’s kitchen—a sacred space where stories, food, and wisdom were shared—Couch invites us to a place that acknowledges the anger and loss woven into family histories while transforming these emotions into pathways for healing. Through family photographs, intricate beadwork, and sculptural objects, she builds bridges across generations, delving into the complexities of heritage, identity, and familial relationships. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
FACT — Fashion and Art Create Tomorrow 🗓️January 21 - April 4, 2025 ⏰Hours: T-Sat 11-4. no charge for admission Erik ReeL paintings [Portland] accompanied by ecologically-minded designers curated by Rhonda P. Hill. Alena Kalana [Los Angeles and Guam] Fabiola Soavelo [Switzerland, Madagascar, London] Palani Bearghost [enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Madan, Hidatsa, & Arikara. Also, Oglala, Northern Cheyenne, & Diné. Portland-based] 📍Whitman College, Sheehan Gallery, Walla Walla, Washington ℹ️ Erik ReeL, “Mechanisms of Power”, acrylic, 53 x 65 inches, 2024 #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
Lines of Light, #newwork by Nancy Lorenz 📍PDX Contemporary Art @pdxcontemporaryart 🗓️ January 2–February 1, 2025 The works in Lines of Light reference fleeting moments of light—lines of sunlight through clouds, rain reflected on water, and glimmers of moonlight and shimmering starlight. The work seeks to put geometry and materiality to something ethereal, similar to the way golden rays seen in centuries of religious painting suggest miraculous spirits. Nancy Lorenz is the recipient of the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and has exhibited extensively throughout the world, including a mid-career retrospective at the San Diego Museum of Art. She is in the collections of Chanel Stores (Paris, Hong Kong, Ginza, Taipei, Rome, Boston, Dubai, Geneva, Bangkok), Tiffany & Co. (New York), and Gucci Tower (Ginza, Hong Kong), among others. Lorenz frequently collaborates with leading international architects and designers including William Georgis, Peter Marino, Brian McCarthy, Michael Smith and William Sofield. Her private collections include: Michael Smith, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Joanne Cassullo, Anna Wintour, Tom Ford, and Elton John, among others. ℹ️ Moonlight, 2023, silver leaf, mother of pearl inlay, shellac, and pigment on wood panel #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
broken courage, Joe Bun Keo 📍Specialist, 300 South Washington Street Seattle, Washington 🗓️January 2 - February 16, 2025 ✨Opening Reception: First Thursday, January 2, 5-8PM ✨Second Reception: First Thursday, February 6, 5-8PM ⏰Gallery Hours: By Appointment on Saturdays, 12-3 PM In a world overburdened with stuff, these objects give an object’s account of what it means to be in the world. It is an understanding of the world on the part of the commodity as a historical subject, rather than on behalf of humans.” - Joshua Simon, The Unreadymade from Neomaterialism “…the Khmer term for trauma is ‘baksbat’; a broken body that leads to a broken spirit, broken courage” - Boreth Ly, on his book “Traces of Trauma” broken courage features deceptively muted, autoethnographic, and punny new work that unpacks the intergenerational trauma of growing up in Predominantly White Middle Class Suburban America a child of Khmer Rouge survivors and Cambodian refugees. Materials used in the work range from traditional Khmer krama scarves to old wooden hat stands. These objects can exist in the past, present and future. We are subordinate to the commodity, the thing, the product. Healing and pain management are derived from sentimental value that resides within each item. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx #artandaboutsea #seattleart
Just Playin’ Around from January 21–April 26, 2025, 📍JSMA at PSU @psu_museum_of_art 🗣️Conversation with Artists & Curators: January 23, 4–5 pm ✨Opening Reception: January 23, 5–7 pm. 📌 All events are free to the public Just Playin’ Around, featuring the work of Derrick Adams, Calvin Chen, Jeremy Okai Davis, Latoya Lovely, Jillian Mayer, Takashi Murakami, Jeremy Rotsztain, Heidi Schwegler, Joshua Sin, Matthew Earl Williams, and Erwin Wurm.. Play and humor have deep but often unacknowledged roles in the history of art. Like art, play exists outside of the realms of logic and utility; yet both are universal across human history and cultures. Many artists acknowledge that playfulness is a necessary state for making art, allowing them to think flexibly, to take risks and to achieve states of creative flow. Playfulness and humor in art can also be a crucial form of subversion and resistance, especially for artists whose identities and subject matters challenge societal norms and conventions. “The artists in this exhibition show us how play is a form of freedom, and art and artists can’t exist without freedom,” said Nancy and Theo Downes-Le Guin, co-curators of the exhibition. “These connections between play, art, and freedom are worth serious consideration. But we didn’t want this exhibition to explore play in art just as an idea–the experience should be fun and participatory. We hope people are going to find a lot to laugh about and think about in Just Playin’ Around.” #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
January newsletter went out this past Thursday. ✨🖼️🧣We always try to get it out to you on The First Thursday of the month so you can plan your art viewing accordingly. You can subscribe for free at anytime to get it delivered to you inbox 💌 www.artandaboutpdx.com/newsletter 📲
A Stone in a Field, Works from the Miller Meigs Collection at @lumberroompdx ✨This month’s standout exhibition — a meditation on the margins of minimalism. 🧘🏽 This #winter exhibition is available to visit by appointment only. To schedule a visit email info@lumberroom.com. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx @lumberroompdx #lumberroompdx
Listening to the Land, A Panel Conversation & Community Discussion on Art with Megita Denton, Erinn Kathryn, and Mike Vos to discuss the intersection of art, nature, and the written word and is the closing event for Epiphany Couch’s solo exhibition Before the Fire Lit My Dreams. 🗓️ Thursday, January 9 from 6-8 pm 📍Paragon Arts Gallery at PCC Cascade #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
2024 recap!🎀🎨🎊 Thanks to everyone for following, reading the ✨free✨ monthly must see art #newsletter, submitting your #exhibitions and #events! 🙏🏼 suggesting us as an account to your friends and family, liking and/or resharing what we post 💌 Extra big special thanks to our MEMBERS (on Patreon) + Subscribers (on Instagram) for helping to make this platform equitable. I’m always in awe and so thankful when people tell me they follow this account—my lil space on the internet I began 10 years ago to share my art adventures. Hope to see you out & about 👀 or at least we can connect over shared love of art happenings in Portland and the PNW here 🫶🏼 xx @ashxpeterson (founder/director) #artandaboutpdx
Echoes Of Passage brings together the works of two artists, both born and raised in China, who use their respective mediums to explore the complex, often disjointed experiences of immigration and its profound impact on identity, materiality, and artistic expression. 📍Well Well Projects - 8371 N Interstate Ave #1 🗓️1/4/2024-1/26/2024 ⏳Hours: Saturday-Sunday 12-5pm Through installations that reflect personal journeys, Jia and Melanie navigate the intersections of displacement, adaptation, and belonging, offering viewers an intimate glimpse into their reflections on the immigrant experience. Together, Jia and Melanie’s works navigate the interplay between physicality and ephemerality, creating a shared space to reflect on the deeply personal yet universally resonant experience of immigration. Through their distinct yet complementary approaches, they invite audiences to contemplate how material and memory intersect in the search for belonging. #wellwellprojects @wellwellprojects @jiaj.i.a @melaniets.art #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
Bill Will, Results of Questionable Experiments 📍Nine Gallery 122 NW 8th Ave Portland 🗓️January 9 - February 1, 2025 ⏳Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 12 - 5 pm ✨Opening Reception with the Artist, Thursday, January 9, 2025 from 5-8 pm 30 Recent Sculptures Including: Battery operated Christian iconography Wall mounted trophies of non-animals Modified American flags Wooden clothes 25¢ (coin-operated) disco Irreverent sound sculptures Atonal wind chimes Uncle Sam’s bow tie Ron DeSantis animated sculpture Paint-by-number wall art Collaborations with famous and unknown artists Repurposed whoopee cushion And so much more… Bill Will is a conceptual sculptor and installation artist whose work is known for its humorous focus on contemporary social and political issues. Will typically uses mundane materials and recognizable objects to create work that encourages people to think critically about our world and modern conundrums such as conformity, economic disparity, jingoism, and national security. In his career, Will has presented more than 40 one-person exhibitions and installations. In 2005 The Art Gym at Marylhurst University featured a mid-career retrospective of his work and in 2006 he was awarded the 15th Bonnie Bronson Fellowship. In 2017 The Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art at Lewis & Clark College presented Fun House, a site-specific exhibition of installations and sculpture created between 2005 and 2017. In addition to sculpture and installation art, Bill has completed more than 30 public art commissions. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
Always so appreciative when friends and readers send art focused ephemera our way. Past exhibition posters from @frontfalse ✨ #artandaboutpdx
Stumptown Coffee Roasters is pleased to announce Midori Hirose as a recipient of its Artist Fellowship. ✨ 📍STUMPTOWN COFFEE ROASTERS 128 SW Third Ave, Portland 🗓️On view November 14, 2024 - February 11, 2025 ⏳Hours: DAILY 7AM-5PM Midori Hirose’s To the Ha Ha invites viewers to embark on a journey of laughter, transcendence, and the unseen. Inspired by ha-ha crystals, her work delves into the idea that laughter, in all its forms, from a giggle to a guffaw or a chuckle to a chortle serves as a portal to unmanifest planes. Through mixed-media wall installations, Hirose blends the forms of laughter with the experience of surreal absurdist impacts. This invites viewers to reflect on the interplay between cosmic and personal energies. The installation reflects on the concept of “friends within” and hidden connections. The installation reveals the profound connections between the visible and invisible by inviting viewers to experience the intersection of frequencies, spiritual divination, and what forms of laughter may hold “within” and release. Midori Hirose, a Japanese American interdisciplinary artist from Hood River, OR, is based in Portland, OR. Hirose explores themes of memory, transformation, and connection through playful nuance and new modes of communication. Her work involves community bonds, collaborative space, historical narrative, perception, and storytelling, which she terms “material storytelling.” Hirose’s sculptures are metaphors for the complexity of understanding, acting as dimensional illustrations of her explorations. Her art has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, CA, and Oregon Contemporary (formerly Disjecta) for the Portland Biennial, and group exhibitions in venues like the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and East/West Project in Berlin, Germany. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
@elizabethleachgallery holiday party + #opening reception for their two new shows featuring @judycooke61 and @cabourdette #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
Yoshihiro Kitai & Rick Bartow 📍 @froelick_gallery 🗓️Now through Feb 1, 2025 🎙️Artist Talk with Yoshihiro Kitai: Saturday, December 14 at 1 pm 🎪Gallery Holiday Party: Saturday, December 14, from 2 to 5 pm Two exhibitions featuring works by @p_n_c_a @printmediamfa professor Yoshihiro Kitai and the late Native American artist, Rick Bartow. Yoshihiro Kitai’s exhibit “I am looking at the same sky no matter where I am” reflects the artist’s internal struggle between their Japanese roots and life in the United States, emphasizing the acceptance of changing identity while investigating human connections and group dynamics through abstract creations. Kitai’s work embraces a mix of Japanese and Western materials, drawing inspiration from traditional Japanese ceramics and celebrating imperfection, resonating with Bartow’s exploration of identity and cultural heritage in their respective art practices. Rick Bartow (1946 - 2016), a leading figure in contemporary Native American art and a member of the Mad River Band of Wiyot Indians, is celebrated for his dynamic pastel and graphite drawings, as well as his diverse work as a painter, sculptor, and printmaker. His creative journey was significantly shaped by a two-decade collaboration with Charles Froelick, leading to his art being featured in over 100 public collections and solo exhibitions.
✨ Opening night ✨ at the Nutcracker with @oregon.ballet.theatre 🩰 We had so much fun at last weekend first showing of this season’s most anticipated performance. Highly suggest grabbing a loved one(s) to go and see for this beautiful holiday classic together. 🎄 #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx #oregonballet #ballet #nutcracker
Emily Counts: Sea of Vapors 🪸#ceramic #sculpture installation at @oregoncontemporary is fantastic — a must see experience for sure. There’s so much to look at, hidden mirrors, flickering lights, insects and feline friends delighting viewers with their presence. The warm glow of the back room draws you in but the glowing fungi lamps, flowers and soft sculptures of #moth and #figures keep you lingering ✨🍄‍🟫🦋 You can see this show person until February 9, 2025 💗🍄🌟 #artandaboutpdx
Colors & Cocktails 🎨🍸 🗓️ Friday, Dec 6 5-9 PM 🏆 Prize drawing at 7:30 PM 📍 @catherinefreshley Fine Art 4085 N Williams Ave
Christine Bourdette | Cumulus 📍 @elizabethleachgallery 🗓️December 11, 2024 - February 1, 2025 ⏳Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30 am - 5:30 pm Two new sculptural, wall-reliant works are comprised of hundreds of hand-cut pieces of layered vellum. Each individual element has been bathed in pigment-based ink and, when assembled, vaguely resembles core samples that have been contorted into beautiful, parabolic shapes. They are visual representatives of the notion that the earth is an unending cycle of restlessness and transformation and that erosion can create perfectly imperfect objects. A new series of experimental drawings and works on paper includes various printmaking techniques involving hand-hewn overlays such as cut-out veils and silver-leafed swaths of raised patterns that read like braille on Rorschach patterns. These works are paired with other water-based works on Dura-Lar, a non-absorptive substrate that creates a mysterious effect with her signature treatments. Bourdette’s images reference landscapes and speak to nature’s fragility with these frail materials, assiduous labor, and simple gestures. The compositional strategy of bisecting the picture plane with a horizontal void is a recurring motif in Bourdette’s new two-dimensional works and is meant to enunciate the disconnect between human beings and the planet we occupy. This symbolic incision is less about contention, human vs. nature, than an estrangement between us and our habitat. With an uneasy eye on the horizon, apprehension about climate change is an implicit theme in this exhibition, and Bourdette will quickly admit that her work is a subtle call to action—a quiet protest, as all great works of art in their own special way can be. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx
Judy Cooke, Following Form 2024 📍 @elizabethleachgallery 🗓️December 11, 2024 - February 1, 2025 ⏳Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30 am - 5:30 pm Her work refers quite specifically to its surrounding architectural conditions and our physical relationship to them. Nods to the Russian Constructivist, Suprematist, and certain Post-Minimalist such as Imi Knoebel, Robert Mangold, and even Elizabeth Murray are hard to ignore. These influences flutter and echo amongst the work, but Cooke’s brand of Formalism is uniquely her own and has been for over five decades. Having come from a background of printmaking and graphic art, Cooke has been developing an abstract language that both expands and subverts the tenets of Minimalism in the most joyful of ways while simultaneously paying tribute to them. Unexpected shapes and materials such as rubber are again utilized and rhyme beautifully in their naked and contorted way when abutted against her signature, raw woodworks. Though her paintings can appear at times austere, they have a hidden humor and tenderness that’s unlocked when closely studied. Sculpted wooden panels with glyph-like markings playfully argue with the irregular shapes of their substrates. Color frequently somersaults into kaleidoscopic arrangements; sometimes, it remains stoic and straight. Cooke’s ability to choreograph a beautiful collision of painterly and sculptural gestures is the work of a mind that refuses to accept any one genre or tradition and prefers to find a more plural definition of how an artist manifests her practice while submitting fresh new ideas about abstraction. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx