Years Like Water: Nadia Sablin
๐Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Ave., Portland
โณHours: Wed-Sat, 12-5 p.m.
๐๏ธ Sep 4 - 27, 2025
๐๏ธ Free to the public
๐๏ธIn-Person Artist Talk: Sat, Sep 20 at 2 PM
Nadia Sablin’s Years Like Water is a ten-year portrait of life in a remote Russian village. Following four families, the series captures children’s freedom in nature and adults’ quiet endurance. Through intimate moments, her work reveals a complex, poetic reality: one far richer and more human than media portrayals of contemporary Russia suggest.
Nadia Sablin (Russian, b. 1980, she/her) is a photographer, whose work explores the larger world through intimately observed narratives, memory, fact, and myth. Her long-term projects span years of children growing up, elders growing old and the ways in which people cope with the passage of time in an unstable environment.
Sablin is a Guggenheim fellow and Fulbright scholar, winner of the Center for Documentary Studies Honickman prize and New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in photography. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, American Photo, and The Washington Post and exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, including Philadelphia Museum of Art, Southeast Museum of Photography, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and Cleveland Museum of Art among many others.
#artandaboutpdx #blueskygallerypdx #nadaisablin #yearslikewater
Restless Nature, Erika Warhus
๐Laura Vincent Design & Gallery, 824 NW Davis St. Portland
โณHours: Tues-Sat, 11 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
๐๏ธ August 30-September 27, 2025
๐๏ธ Free to the public
Artist Statement
These paintings came out of me with a lot of energy. Gestural movements and improvisational linework are the foundation of this work. I draw on inspiration from the natural world, patterns and emotions of everyday life and the physical act of mark-making. I am often seeking an unsettled balance between bright vibrating color and muted, gentle areas. For me, this work is a study of life in motion; scratching and searching with snapshots of feelings, pops of joy and washes of quiet all folded together.
@erika_warhus_art @lvdesignandgallery #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #erikawarhusart #erikawarhus #abstractexpressionism #paintings #contemporaryart #firstthursdaypdx #newartist #pearldistrict
Warp Speed: Joshua Sin Public Lunchtime Lecture
๐๏ธโณSeptember 18, 2025 from 12-1PM
๐Pacific Northwest College of Art - In the first-floor Mediatheque
Joshua (Josh) Sin is a multidisciplinary artist born in Toronto and based in Portland. His practice is rooted in a lifelong commitment to embodied discipline—as a world champion gymnast, concert pianist, cobbler, and designer—disciplines that have shaped a visual language grounded in precision, repetition, and technique.
Sin’s work interrogates consumer culture, technological faith, and nationalist narratives through a fusion of ancestral craft and speculative futurism. Transforming discarded consumer goods and textiles into sacred artifacts, he reimagines waste as a site of spiritual and cultural renewal. His large-scale descendant sculptures, immersive rice room installations, and film works explore cycles of deconstruction and reconstruction as metaphors for identity, ancestry, and transformation.
Drawing from ancient Eastern traditions and digital technologies, Sin visualizes circularity not only as a sustainable model, but as a symbolic act of continual evolution. Bridging past and present, East and West, his practice meditates on how we build, break, and rebuild—materially and spiritually—in pursuit of a more expansive and inclusive future.
Day 9 (Sept 12) of @picapdx #timebasedart festival. Memory as a Rock Out of Reach, Erika M. Anderson (EMA) and Tabitha Nikolai. @_ema_usa_ @tabby_twitchit
#artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #tba #tba25 #timebasedartfestival #yellowsongs #daostrom
Day 9 (Sept 12) of @picapdx #timebasedart festival. Tender Revolutions/Yellow Songs, Dao Strom. ๐จ๐ถ๐ก๐ค๐จ
Additional Collaborators: mai ide, garment designer, Marcelo Fontana, installation design consultant, Kyle Macdonald, videography
#artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #tba #tba25 #timebasedartfestival #yellowsongs #daostrom
A Special #TBA Edition newsletter went out the other day ๐ (are you subscribed?!)
See you at the last few performances Portland!
@john.vitale.art at @chefasprojects ~ at the #openingreception
A selection of abstract paintings in saturated hues, including some not so sneaky bright neons. On view till Sept 20. ๐จ๐๏ธ
#artandaboutpdx #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #artinportland #pdx #portland #portlandoregon #pnw #pacificnorthwest #whattodothisweekendpdx #pdxartgalleries #discoverart #artblog #artplatform #arthappenings #artgallery #artgallerypdx #travelportland #artistsupportartists
CURIOBLOOM by Matthew Bennett Laurents @mattbennettlaurents
๐Carnation Contemporary, 8371 N Interstate Ave #3, Portland @carnationcontemporary
โณHours: Sat-Sun 12-5 p.m.
๐๏ธ September 6 — 28, 2025
๐๏ธ Free to the public
Curiobloom is comprised of new porcelain vessels created through an ongoing ceramics practice rooted in hand-building and intuition. Each piece is made using the coil method, a technique that allows for subtle irregularities and gradual shifts in form and scale. Over time, these differences have become a point of fascination for me—how, within a shared process that begins from the same place, each vessel develops a distinct personality while remaining unified in essence. My intention is for these works to exist without expectation, asking nothing from the viewer beyond their presence. Together, they reflect my ongoing interest in how handmade objects evolve through process, and how individuality can emerge naturally when each piece is approached on its own terms.
Matthew Bennett Laurents graduated with an MFA in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA in Studio Art from Lewis & Clark College. Drawing on histories of craft and ritual, his work explores the potential of objects as vessels for spiritual and emotional energy. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
As Above, So Below, Anna Buckner & Meredith Morrison @anna.buckner @meredith.morrison
๐Well Well Projects, 8371 N Interstate Ave. #1, Portland @wellwellprojects
โณHours: Sat-Sun 12-5 p.m.
๐๏ธ September 6 - 28, 2025
๐๏ธ Free to the public
As Above, So Below brings together works from artists Anna Buckner and Meredith Morrison that trace the subtle but persistent ways meaning takes form—through marks, gestures, and systems. These notations, whether intentional or intuitive, function as records of thought, movement, and memory. They ask what it means to map an experience, to nurture something fleeting, or to give shape to what resists formal language.
The title borrows from an ancient Hermetic phrase, suggesting a mirroring between the macro and the micro, the structural and the intimate. This mirroring is neither symmetrical nor complete. Instead, what’s charted are the slippages; The points where logic breaks down, where systems fail to contain emotion, and where abstraction begins to feel personal. Here, vulnerability becomes a form of authorship, and the most fragile marks can hold enormous weight.
Across materials and mediums, notation becomes a method—sometimes precise, sometimes improvised—for symphonizing presence, absence, and transition. Patterns emerge and dissolve. Lines falter and symbols repeat without resolving to cultivate meaning that circulates rather than settles. Through suggestion rather than explanation, the works resist closure. Operating at the edge of legibility, where only traces of proximity reveal themselves and fragments hold more than they explain, these textures of emotion invite layered possibilities of meaning.
#artandaboutpdx #onviewpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryart #pdxart #artinpdx #artinportland #pdx #portland #portlandoregon #pnw #pacificnorthwest #whattodothisweekendpdx #pdxartgalleries #discoverart #artblog #artplatform #arthappenings #artgallery
Day 8 (Sept 11) of @picapdx #timebasedart festival. Number Series, Madison Brookshire, co-presented with @cinema_project
#artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #tba #tba25 #timebasedartfestival #film #cinema #color
Everything you need to know about the Portland art scene this September in our โจMust-Seeโจ art Newsletter.
Including @picapdx #timebasedart #festival @p_n_c_a @ccac_pnca Fall Events, recent articles and collaborations. And of course, and what we’re looking at and what’s on our radar. xoxo
Not subscribed? Our monthly email is free to sign up! ๐artandaboutpdx.com/newsletter. Our newsletter will help you stay in the know slash be the cool artsy friend that knows what’s happening.
Let us know in the comments what exhibitions you already saw or want to see in #Portland, throughout #Oregon or #Seattle this month! Also feel free to send news /questions / comments / gossip / collaboration requests to us at hello@artandaboutpdx.com ๐#artandaboutpdx #criticspick #artblog #portlandartscene
Revisiting our archive today ~ and was reminded of Asher Hartman’s mini series/live-in art project of The Dope Elf at YU in 2019.
Presented in 3 parts this performance transformed the gallery space into an interactive set that blurred the lines of the audience and actors. Blending modern life in a dystopian folkloric approach while combining elements fairytales — wolves, trolls, magicians…to be honest we think about this performance quite often and seeing Blessed with a Switch at TBA brought it back to the front of our mind.
Visiting Artist Lecture: Peggy Chiang โจpresented in partnership with Adams and Ollman
๐๏ธ Friday, September 12 at 6 PM
๐ PNCA Mediatheque - in person
Peggy Chiang makes images and objects that scratch the laminate of representation. She works by abstracting conventions around value, labor, and material memory.
Recent solo exhibitions include barn burner at Adams and Ollman, Portland; Wasted at Laurel Gitlen, New York; Fiend at hatred2, Brooklyn; and spleen and ideal at Prairie, Chicago.
She is a 2024 Joan Mitchell Fellow and received an MFA from Rutgers University. Chiang is a Professor of Sculpture at the City College of New York, CUNY and lives in Brookly
Bookends ๐๏ธ๐๐ชจ
๐ PDX Contemporary Art
๐๏ธSeptember 10 - October 4, 2025
โจOpening reception, Saturday, September 13 from 3-5 pm (RSVP encouraged)
Participating artists Anna Gray + Ryan Wilson Paulsen, Iván Carmona, Jodie Cavalier, Nan Curtis, Marjorie Dial, Jess Perlitz, and Joshua West Smith each created a set of bookends reflecting their practice, point of view, and use of materials.
Books continue to be treasured for the knowledge they contain and as objects themselves. September seems like a perfect time to add bookends to your collection. Our exhibition Bookends, is group show featuring conceptual and functional bookends ready to hold your favorite books.
Each bookend is made from a variety of mediums—ceramic, steel, wood, and concrete, as well as more unconventional materials like crayons and beans. The works reference steadiness, the weight of loss, the closeness of friendship, landmark events, and things that hold.
Day 4 (Sept 7) of @picapdx #timebasedart festival.
๐ป๐๐๐พ๐๐๐, ๐ Performed by Tahni Holt and Emma Lutz-Higgins. With composer Luke Wyland, visual artist Jess Perlitz, lighting designers Al Knight Blaine and James Mapes, costume designer/visual artist Kim Smith Claudel, and dramaturg Kate Bredeson. Directed by Tahni Holt. Choreographed in collaboration with Emma Lutz-Higgins.
#artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #tba #tba25 #timebasedartfestival
Day 3 (Sept 6) of @picapdx #timebasedart festival.
Inebria Me, San Cha @__san_cha__ ๐ฅ๐ฅ co-presented with @boomartspdx
#artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #tba #tba25 #timebasedartfestival
Day 3 (Sept 6) of @picapdx #timebasedart festival.
Dads, Drama Tops @drama_tops_official ๐ co-presented with @pwnwpdx
#artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #tba #tba25 #timebasedartfestival
Day 2 (Sept 5) of @picapdx #timebasedart festival.
๐ฉ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐, Asher Hartman @chickentasteslikewood and Jasmine Orpilla @jasminemediumrare ๐โจ co-presented with @pamuseum_
#artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #tba #tba25 #timebasedartfestival
Day 1 (Sept 4) of @picapdx #timebasedart festival ๐ถ Omni Rail by Angelo Scott and collaborators at @p_n_c_a 511 Building
#artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #tba #tba25 #timebasedartfestival
In the lull between Summer and Fall, the Time-Based Art Festival takes place. The annual event is known for presenting visually stimulating performances, videos, talks, workshops, and exhibitions across the city. Artists from up and down the West Coast, including Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles, will be highlighted, making this year a regional spectacle.
This year, the iconic Portland festival will be spread across 10 days, Sept 4-14, so you have plenty of time to attend one, some, or all the programming. Go with friends, make it a romantic or platonic date, or even bring your kids this year, since some showtimes have been pushed up; you don’t even need to call the babysitter. Or go alone, but do go to something! You don’t want to be the person who didn’t go this year or doesn’t know firsthand the magic that is TBA.
Not to mention the after-hour hangs that commence once the show ends, allowing you to discuss what you just saw, thoughts and feelings, etc, etc, etc. Even if you can’t linger after a show, make sure to plan to attend the after-hours Dirty Thirty Closing party (yes, PICA is growing up like the rest of us & celebrating turning 30 this year.) We’re excited to collaborate with PICA to share what’s happening throughout the festival, so keep an eye out for what’s to come and what we’re seeing!
