The Latest

Of ev ryh re and n wh re, by Vo Vo 📍Elizabeth Leach Gallery - 417 NW 9th Ave 🗓️April 30 - May 31, 2025 ✨First Thursday: May 1, 5:30 - 7:30 pm ⏳Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30 - 5:30 pm 🎟️Free to the public Vo creates sculptures and textile-based works that reflect on the dehumanizing internationalism of a globalized economy, climate change, media streams, social forces, geographic displacement, erasure and the ongoing genocide of a people Reflecting on their own identity, experience and history as an immigrant, third culture kid, and child of refugees from the Vietnam War, Vo’s installation draws attention to feelings of displacement and the inability to find a place to settle in the world. The exhibition contemplates the possible futures of people who lose their homes, their lands, associated nation-states, or are displaced from the localities where they and their families are from. Allusions to marginalized bodies, the policing of movement, and imperial and colonial forces, even evident online, are found throughout the exhibition. Against these forces, opportunities for community-building and healing emerge – a bed for rest and a table where we can gather appear; a figure steps through a door; the end of the bench offers a poem and a place to sit in contemplation. Creating the opportunity to explore different zones of safety, Vo invites viewers to come together and navigate the current political climate. Vo Vo (they/them) explores support strategies and models of community care within a post-traumatic social landscape, focusing on the resilience of BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+ and disabled communities. They are editor, educator, curator, artist, and musician who has exhibited and toured in Australia, Germany, Indonesia. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx

An exhibition of photographs by Christopher Rauschenberg. Drawn from Studio Photography, Rauschenberg’s longest-running series, Backstage gives viewers a glimpse into an essential aspect of the art ecosystem, the artist’s studio. As the child of artists and a curator himself, Rauschenberg has frequented studios for his entire life, and thus is particularly well-situated to draw the curtain aside for his audience. 📍Elizabeth Leach Gallery - 417 NW 9th Ave 🗓️April 30 - May 31, 2025 ✨First Thursday: May 1, 5:30 - 7:30 pm ⏳Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30 - 5:30 pm 🎟️Free to the public Born of a feeling that the public isn’t shown behind the scenes often enough, these works invite viewers into the studios of Portland-based artists, as well as that of Rauschenberg’s mother, Susan Weil. Through individual images and combinations that create fictional spaces, Rauschenberg sets the stage to allow for discovery of these places of creation. With his deep involvement in Portland, Oregon’s art scene, Rauschenberg extends a welcome, allowing us to look over his shoulder and engage with the artists around us. Artists whose studios are featured in Backstage include Katherine Ace, Ebenezer Galluzzo, Malia Jensen, Joanne Radmilovich Kollman, Henk Pander, Laura Ross Paul, Marie Watt, and Susan Weil. Based in Portland, Oregon, Christopher Rauschenberg received his BA from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. His work has been exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA), the Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL), the International Center of Photography (New York, NY) and the George Eastman House (Rochester, NY), among many other major institutions. An exceptionally active leader in the Northwest arts community, Rauschenberg co-founded both Nine Gallery and the photography nonprofit Blue Sky Gallery (Portland, Oregon). #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx

NW Marine Art Works Group Exhibition 📍The Writer’s Block - 818 NW Flanders St. 🗓️May 1-23, 2025 ⏳Hours: Monday- Friday 11-2p or by appt 🎟️Free to the public ✨May 1st | 5-8pm The Writers’ Block Art Gallery is delighted to host a group exhibition featuring 12 artists from NW Marine Art Works during the month of May. Please join us for a First Thursday opening reception on May 2nd in the Pearl. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet the artists and preview some of the fine art that will be on display during their Summer Open Studios event taking place at NW Marine Art Works on May 31st + June 1st. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx #thewritersblock #northwestmarineartworks

Celebrate the PNCA MFA graduates for their #thesis exhibition, opening ✨Thursday, May 1st ✨ at PNCA, Stelo Arts, and Building 5. These 15 exceptional artists, designers, and makers have dedicated themselves to intensive research, experimentation, and profound dedication, resulting in a diverse and compelling array of work. @maiidepdx @ofgreengays @frison_ebony @jessofarrellart @poetrayprints somatic_creations @birdinthebronzeage @melancholia.exe @pearlsandiciclestoo @erinphox d.s.press @myracrane @clairefrances_studio @forgotten_frontlines_archive

Our body is a clock by Sara J. Winston 📍Blue Sky Gallery - 122 NW 8th Ave 🗓️May 1 - 31, 2025 ⏳Hours:Wed - Sat, 12 - 5 PM 🧭Free to the public ✨First Thursday Opening: May 1, 5 - 9 PM 🗣️In-Person Artist Talk: Sat, May 3, 3:30 PM Sara J. Winston explores chronic illness, care, and agency in her project “Our body is a clock”. Created within the Infusion Center, these images transform a clinical space into one of reflection, resistance, and quiet resilience. Through subtle gestures and shifting appearance, the series challenges cultural taboos around illness and dependency while inviting conversations around care, survival, and identity. #artandaboutpdx #blueskygallerypdx #sarajwinston #ourbodyisaclock

Resemblance by Leah DeVun 📍Blue Sky Gallery - 122 NW 8th Ave 🗓️May 1 - 31, 2025 ⏳Hours:Wed - Sat, 12 - 5 PM 🧭Free to the public ✨First Thursday Opening: May 1, 5 - 9 PM 🗣️In-Person Artist Talk: Sat, May 3, 2 PM Leah DeVun’s series “Resemblance” documents her partner, a transgender father, and their shared experience raising a son. Amid escalating anti-trans legislation and rhetoric that paints queer families as unsafe, these images offer a necessary counter-narrative. DeVun’s work shows a real queer and trans family living with tenderness, stability, and care. This series reminds people that LGBTQ+ lives are more than trauma — they’re also full of love, futures, and chosen family. #artandaboutpdx #blueskygallerypdx #leahdevun #resemblance

Each Step Pronounced, Renee Couture + Ebenezer Galluzzo 📍Carnation Contemporary - 8371 N Interstate Ave #3, 🗓️May 3 — June 1, 2025 ⏳Sat–Sun, 12–5 PM & by appointment ✨Opening Reception: Saturday, May 3, 5–8 PM ⭐️Special Events⭐️ 📌Two hosted workshops with Ebenezer Galluzzo and Given Davis, dates TBD 📌Release party for Mannie Murphy’s Zine Still Sick on Friday, May 30, 5-8 pm 📌Closing artist conversation on Sunday, June 1, 2-3 pm Inspired by archetypes of nurturing, acceptance and trust, Renee Couture and Ebenezer Galluzzo explore the spaces where difference and belonging exist together. The tension between searching and finding, confusion and knowing, letting go and holding on are the guides in each artists’ work. Each Step Pronounced gives space to witness and honor the small actions taken daily to be seen and celebrated. In the wake of numerous transphobic executive orders since the inauguration, Galluzzo was drawn to create a nurturing Gender Queer Deity to pray to when feeling overwhelmed, isolated, and scared. The resulting project, You are the Beacon, You are the Storm, combines nine gender queer individuals from Galluzzo’s life who have shone the way for what is possible by being their authentic selves. The resulting figure serves as a resting place when feeling out to sea, and a reminder of the impact one has with each step they make towards themselves. Meanwhile, Couture’s project, You Will Forever Be More Than Enough, addresses the ongoing practice of holding on and letting go that parenthood demands. Inspired by her daughter’s entry into kindergarten and the “six-year transition,” Couture explores navigating a significant life change, illustrating that while they remain deeply connected, they are evolving into new versions of themselves. In this exhibit Couture and Galluzzo seek to create works that say, “I see you, I love you, and I continue to walk towards all that is possible.” Each Step Pronounced invites reflection on the steps we take toward ourselves while witnessing the distinct paths of others. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx

In spite of one’s self, Anthony Roberto 📍Well Well Projects - 8371 N Interstate Ave #1 🗓️May 3 - June 1, 2025 ⏳Hours: Saturday & Sunday 12-5pm ℹ️Free and open to the public Anthony Roberto’s second solo exhibition at Well Well Projects features his signature 3D printed figurative sculptures. As a continuation of his years long body of work Object, Model, Figure, Form, Roberto’s sculptures deal with the individual’s relationship to the crowd. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx

At the Altar of My Own Love, Erin Bodfish 🗓️May 1-30, 2025 ✨Opening Reception: First Thursday, May 1st, 2025, 6-9 pm 🗣️Artist Talk with V Maldonado & 💫Closing Reception: Friday, May 30, 7-9 pm ⏳Gallery Hours⌛️Tuesday & Thursday 6-8 pm & Saturday 12-5 pm Grief is felt in the body, as real as any injury. It is a heaviness, a physical ache formed. It is something that is ephemeral, fleeting in its presence, and yet able to permanently effect change. I feel this presence of grief within my own body. Its permanent alteration of the makeup of my form. It is a scar tissue that has healed over itself time and time again. Through the mourning of my past selves, of love once lost, this series of work At the Altar of My own Love came to be. These paintings reflect a rebirth, a coming to terms with departure, and a love returning that I thought lost. I have pieced myself back together, one fragment at a time, finding beauty in the sharpness of my edges, and a relief in being able to settle into soft spaces once again. I capture this through my mark making, through the suffusion of color throughout my works, and an interruption of a traditional viewing format to engage the viewer in an intimate way. I work on a large scale in order to capture the breadth of these feelings of grief—where I shed my former self, emerging anew in my own love. With the use of both live and dried floral matter sculpted alongside these works, the concept of memento mori is represented—a reminder of death and the temporality of life. This temporality can apply to the fleeting nature of relationships, but their everlasting effect. One of rebirth and death. The paintings and sculptures express the process of grieving while seeking to understand a new reality. The small works showcased alongside the altars, act as vanitas—or vanities. These are capturings of fleeting moments of reflection, fragments of self and past loves, abstracting their presence as we let them go. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx

↖️In the North Gallery – We Speak in Color by Heather Adamek and Jeffrey Fuchs ↘️In the South Gallery – Inventing People by Michael Spence 🗓️Exhibition Dates – May 1st through May 31st 📍Gallery 114, 1100 NW Glisan Street @gallery114 ✨Opening Reception: May 1st, 5-8 PM a celebration of abstract expressionist painting that began in America after World War II with painters like Joan Mitchell, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock and continues strong today. The artwork in We Speak in Color is non-representational, spontaneous, and emotional art, using oil and acrylic paint, color and bold mark marking to convey the artists’ inner worlds. Inventing People is a show of new paintings, by Michael Spence that uses a familiar palette of bold colors and loose, improvisational brushwork to paint figures who are made up, conjured often from bits and pieces of memory, imagination, or photos from various sources including the internet, magazines, and family photos. Fuchs’ paintings exemplify the energy and dynamism of abstract expressionism. Characterized by bold brushstrokes and a vibrant palette, the work showcases an interplay of colors and textures, creating a visually engaging experience. His paintings are based on his life experiences as a civil engineer, outdoor explorer, and avid reader. He uses bold colors, composition, and texture to tell his stories. Adamek’s work is an expression of her desire to use color and shape to call us back to the places within where we feel the freest, the most vulnerable, and the most ourselves. Her childhood was spent exploring the wilds of the Pacific Northwest Coast and the lush, quiet undergrowth of the Cascade Mountains. Adamek conveys her experience with bold colors and expressive mark making using layers of oil, charcoal and graphite to tell the stories that words alone cannot fully express. Spence was born in London, raised in Los Angeles, and now resides in Portland. Inventing People is a departure from the landscape paintings Spence is known for. But the work is similar with a focus on color, shape and composition that is characteristically Michael Spence.

CHARLOTTE SALOMON PAINTS HER LIFE WITH PAMELA REITMAN Join Pamela Reitman, author of Charlotte Salomon Paints Her Life for a presentation on Charlotte Salomon’s life, writing her story as historical fiction, and more. 📍Oregon Jewish Museum - 724 NW Davis St 🗓️May 8, 2025 ⏳6-7:30pm 🎟️ $5 for general admission, free for members with code on back of membership card The Holocaust and the years leading up to it had a catastrophic effect on the arts: Jewish artists lost their lives in the death camps or were severely traumatized by social or ethnic persecution; many artists were forced to flee their homeland; and many artworks were destroyed, burned or looted between 1933 and 1945. One of the most stunning works of art produced from that period in history, which did survive, was Life? Or Theater? by Charlotte Salomon. It tells a story in 850 watercolor/gouache paintings created while she was in exile in the South of France. Reitman will talk about the traumas this young woman faced and how she met each one with a steely determination to become a serious modernist artist. She will ask (and answer) the questions: How does art transform trauma? AND—what is the role of historical fiction today, both for the reader and the writer, in Holocaust education? #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx #holocaustart #jewishart #ojmche

In the studio with @pnca_hallieford MFA Visual Studies candidate and 2025 Glean Artist-in-Residence Mai Ide @maiidepdx. 📹 @freshandpretty, 2014 MFA Alumni + Fellow ✨Join them and @p_n_c_a BFA & MFA graduate candidates at their thesis exhibitions opening May 1st at PNCA, Stelo Arts, and Building 5. 🚎 Shuttles will be available. 🚎

I Want To Remember Everything, Kayla Marie Carlson 🫧Portland Artist Fellowship ☕️Stumptown Coffee Roasters Downtown, 128 SW 3rd Avenue 🌀April 16 - July 15, 2025 ✨Reception Thursday, May 1st 5-7pm Kayla Marie Carlson (b. 1991) is a painter, writer and designer raised in the Midwest and based in Portland, Oregon. Kayla’s work is concerned with the perpetual search for personal identity through storytelling, narrative, and connection with the natural world. She is particularly interested in and influenced by landscapes, dreams and fantasies, memories and nostalgia, mythology, fables, magical realism, songwriting and poetry as tools for self-discovery and aims to express the feelings and experiences these elements evoke through her visual art. Her painting style flows between abstract expressionism and impressionism; her initial layers of often broad stroke, embodied, atmospheric color washes that cover the entire canvas, and the subsequent layers become more focused, textural, intimate and involved. Her works are composed intuitively and experimentally, influenced by and evocative of her reverence for the natural world, and how the external world often reflects or influences the internal human experience. The interplay of layers, textures, colors, organic shapes and mark-making yield compositions that are whimsical, poetic, tender, imaginative, playful and expressive - blurring the boundary between reality and fiction, natural and fabricated.

“Color in: “To the Lighthouse”, by Virginia Woolf” by Anna Gray + Ryan Wilson Paulsen @ryannaprojects at PDX Contemporary Art. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx #viriginawoolf #tothelighthouse

@p_e_t_e_r_g_a_l_l_o at @adamsandollman opening reception #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx

Let’s dive into our city’s amazing art and culture, and take in the stunning natural beauty! Weekend highlights: 🎨 @p_e_t_e_r_g_a_l_l_o at @adamsandollman 🪩 @converge_45 art gala 🦆 @csrgpdx 📐 @benbuswell at @oregoncontemporary ✴️ @outervoicepdx at @oregoncontemporary #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene

RUPERT MOWS THE LAWN NOW, Galen Ballinger at Stumptown Coffee Roasters Division 🪜April 9 - July 8, 2025 ✨Reception Date: April 18th Is god just an imaginary friend? For a short time when I was young I had an imaginary friend I’m told was named Rupert. One day he stopped responding. But lately I’ve been trying to make him talk again. I have found painting to be a conversation between the artist and the universe. You say something and it responds. And then you respond back. And so on. It’s all in the process. Sometimes this takes years, sometimes just a few hours. But usually it takes many sessions over a period of time. The conversations meander and the universe doesn’t always want to talk. But when we are talking nothing is off limits- and often our conversation will shift direction a dozen times before a painting is finished. And like any good conversation you never know exactly where it’s headed. Sometimes it’s about painting, other times it’s about life. Sometimes my own, sometimes someone else’s. Memories, dreams, delusions, ideas, emotions, and always the infinite questions. Often I’m talking with multiple paintings at once and sometimes they’ll start talking to each other. I find this helpful. Other times they say nothing and for long periods we just stare at each other in silence. In music I’ve found the most effective musicians are always the deepest listeners. In visual art I think this translates as “looking.” Art is a staring contest. So much of the work is done by really looking. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx

Cappy Thompson: Thinking of Angels 📍 @studioegallery 🗓️ March 8 - April 19, 2025 A 16-piece exhibition of multi-dimensional work by Seattle-based artist Cappy Thompson, distills the philosophical and material practices of one of the most innovative artists working in glass of the last five decades to put forward a universal truth: what happens next is a mystery to us all. Drawing on spiritual imagery from myriad religious and geographical references, Thompson uses glass, among the most ancient of media, to absorb narrative explorations into spirituality and the permeability between embodied life and what exists beyond. Glass is among the most transformative of media, shapeshifting from liquid to solid, orb to vessel to plane. Within its fragility, its spontaneity, and the danger it presents when shattered, from the fiery depths to the divinity of refracted light, perhaps better than any other medium, glass – in its many forms and material properties - mirrors human existence. #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #seattleartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendseattle #artandaboutsea #artandaboutseattle #artandaboutpnw #seattle

Interior Landscapes: Judy Pfaff 📍The Schnitzer Collection, 3033 NE Yeon, Portland, Oregon 🗓️April 19, 2025 - August 23, 2025 🎟️Free and open to the public #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx

Save the date! 🔖 MFA + BFA Thesis Exhibitions are Opening Receptions on May 1st, 2025 from 5-8pm 📌 Happening across 3 locations 📍 @ccac_pnca 📍@steloarts📍 @buildingfive This annual exhibition marks the culmination of creative exploration, critical inquiry, and artistic innovation by the Bachelor/Master of Fine Arts candidates at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. 🚍Shuttle service between locations will be provided 🚌 See you there! 🌀 #artandaboutpdx #artgallery #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #pdx #pnw #whattodothisweekendpdx #pnca #mfathesis #bfathesis