May Art happenings

We’re excited to announce the start of something new for Art & About PDX!

You may already be familiar with our events calendar, but starting this month, we will be tweaking the formula for what we call “Critical Viewing” in which exhibitions, and art based events in Portland are highlighted by a local creator.

For the month of May artist, poet, and writer Lindsay Costello, will showcase some of her unique selections for the coming weeks. At our core, Art & About has always been about fostering community through art, and we’re so happy to have the opportunity to now show a slice of the scene though the eyes of community we cover - and we hope you enjoy it too!

NORTH

BOATHOUSE MICROCINEMA: Goddex resistrix, Hannah Piper Burns and others.

On May 5 at 7:30 PM, a screening programmed by Hannah Piper Burns will feature a short film by the artist as well as films by Olivia Louise, ariella tai, Katya Yakubov, Jana Debus, Malena Barnhart, and Jessie Darnell. The compilation is described as “a rich spectrum of fecund jouissance [that] turns the wheel.”

CHURCH OF FILM: Cuadecuc Vampir at Psychic Bar.

As part of their program Monster Movies: Cinema in Franco’s Spain, Church of Film is curating film screenings at various Portland venues throughout May. On May 5 at 8 PM, they’ll be at Psychic Bar with Catalan filmmaker Pere Portabella’s Cuadecuc Vampir. On May 6 at 9:30 PM, they’ll screen Gonzalo Suarez’s Morbo at Century.

DISJECTA: UNTITLED No. 112, OCAC Class of 2019.

In advance of OCAC’s imminent closure, the thesis work of the school’s final BFA class is on view at Disjecta until May 12. Despite the school closure’s unfortunate example of diminishing attention to craft in Portland and beyond, the show is innovative, materially conscious, and identity-focused, spotlighting student dedication.

NORTHEAST

THIRD ROOM: The Artificial Obvious, Karah Lain and Ryan Riss.

Lain and Riss explore opportunities for perception to move beyond constraint toward a noticing of the ever-shifting, vibrating world. The exhibit of drawing and collage work is on view until May 26.

FISK: Fool’s Spring, Jordy van den Nieuwendijk.

Van den Nieuwendijk’s colorful paintings are at once innovative and constrained, with primary colors and simplified shapes that offer a charming, optimistic translation of everyday objects. The show is open until May 26.

BISON BUILDING: I've Gone Out To Find Myself If Anyone Sees Me Please Hold Me Here Until I Get Back, PNCA/OCAC MFA AC+D students.

This practicum exhibit features work by students in PNCA and OCAC’s joint MFA in Applied Craft + Design program. Jason Rens will present a wood sculpture made in collaboration with Portland Art & Learning Studio artists Jamond Williams, Aaron Hutchinson, and Job Erickson. Open May 10–24.

PRIVATE PLACES: Bad Teeth, Sara Clendening and Skylar Haskard.

Clendening manipulates familiar objects to create sculptures and installations that evoke conflict, violence and chaos, while Haskard’s multimedia works exist in a realm of locational response and open-ended, participatory proposal. Open by appointment through June 9.

OUTER SPACE: Subcult: An Exchange Between Artists, various artists.

Opening May 9. This collaborative series includes works by PSU MFA in Art & Social Practice students and Columbia River Correctional Institute artists-in-residence.

SOUTHEAST

NATIONALE: Pansy, Michelle Blade.

Blade’s magical works meditate on feminine modes of knowledge, the natural world, and the unpredictable qualities of painting. With satin as a canvas, Blade’s paintings have an organic, lifelike, luminous quality that blends expertly with her subject matter. On view May 3–June 4.

YALE UNION: What Was Always Yours and Never Lost, Sky Hopinka.

Experimental films and videos by Hopinka explore personal narratives of indigenous homeland, landscape, and language as a cultural container. This exhibit will also feature a site-specific video installation by the Colectivo los Ingrávidos and other works by indigenous filmmakers, including Thirza Cuthand, Adam and Zack Khalil with Jackson Polys, James Luna, and Caroline Monnet. Open until June 9.

VARIOUS LOCATIONS: Assembly, PSU Art and Social Practice MFA students.

This annual community event series will take place May 3–5. Held in several locations within and around Portland’s diverse Jade District, the event series includes discussions, meals, and collaborations that explore social issues, migration, memory, and other topics.

STEPHANIE CHEFAS PROJECTS: Caramels, Kristin Texeira.

Texeira’s stark, abstract paintings serve as “memory maps”, vessels for nostalgia that challenge the linear nature of time. The Brooklyn-based artist references folk art and uses a sun-soaked palette in her abstractions. On view until May 18.

FULLER ROSEN: A Thirst for Saltwater, Lehuauakea Fernandez.

Fernandez, a mixed-Native Hawaiian artist, reflects on relationships created through consumption in their series of sculptural and craft-based works. Reflecting on a recent Signal Fire trip throughout occupied Indigenous lands of the southwest, Fernandez meditates on the region’s tensions between Indigenous land practices and ecological destruction. Open May 25–June 12.

1122 GALLERY: TIME>SPACE>PLACE, Jason Triefenbach and others.

Curated by Jason Triefenbach, artist-in-residence at Portland Art & Learning Studios, this group exhibition and community arts happening includes works by Ricky Bearghost, Tess Bidelspach, Aaron Cunningham, Job Erickson, EM Fuller, Tabitha Nikolai, P.A.L.S. video collective, and others. This event is the first manifestation of Standard Practice Co:Creative, a soon-to-be-incorporated community arts nonprofit dedicated to catalyzing creative potentials through engaged discourse and collaborative action. The exhibit emerges from Triefenbach’s ongoing series of interviews with Portland area artists and arts organizations. Through these conversations, the theme of Place, geographical and historical, social and emotional, became a unifying thread. Open May 17–June 15.

MOTHER FOUCAULT’S BOOKS: obsequies chapbook launch, manuel arturo abreu and others.

On May 2, manuel arturo abreu’s chapbook launch will include multimedia poetic performances by interdisciplinary artist Laura Camila Medina and ‘lightworker’ Bogosi Sekhukhuni, as well as piano-playing by abreu. abreu is a poet, artist, and co-facilitator of home school, a free pop-up art school in Portland. In the poet’s words, obsequies “deals with ancestry, pentecost, and the nonlinearity of time.”

NORTHWEST

BLUE SKY GALLERY: An Inward Gaze, Arielle Bobb-Willis and Brittney Cathey-Adams, curated by Roula Seikaly and Jon Feinstein.

Seikaly and Feinstein, the winners of Blue Sky Gallery’s 2019 Curatorial Prize, will showcase works by Bobb-Willis and Cathey-Adams that combat the male gaze and its role in art history. These sculptural, performative images are on view until June 2.

P:EAR GALLERY: Fruit and Friends, Fruit Salad Club and p:ear youth artists.

This collaborative exhibit features work by Fruit Salad Club co-founders Jillian Barthold and Libby Landauer and p:ear youth artists, emphasizing collaboration and viewer participation. p:ear youth keep 90% of the proceeds from the sales of their work. Open until May 31.

HOLDING CONTEMPORARY: Hanging River, Takahiro Yamamoto and Andy Paiko.

With hand-sculpted glass works and live performance, this exhibition investigates cognitive dissonance in contemporary American politics and identity negotiations. Friction between a seemingly-inevitable dystopian future and a shared humanity is evoked through the visceral and visual; everyday objects are rendered in delicate glass. Open through June 1.

UPFOR GALLERY: Plane of Scattered Pasts, Heidi Schwegler and Quayola.

Schwegler investigates broken fragments of ancient and contemporary objects through recasting and material embellishment. Creating a defining moment in the life of the fragmented object, her works reflect on the body’s aging process. Quayola’s video installation features a 17th century ceiling fresco by Giovani Battista Gaulli that explores relationships between geometry, perfectionism, and time. Open May 2–June 22.

SOUTHWEST

MELANIE FLOOD PROJECTS: Odette, Larissa Lockshin.

Titled after the leading role from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Lockshin’s Odette features paintings and sculptural objects that challenge the commodifying image of woman as symbol or object. Reinterpreting Degas’ impressionist paintings of ballerinas, Lockshin’s figures are loose and free. The exhibit’s pastel palette and sculptural references to the artist’s childhood create a feeling of nostalgic warmth. Open May 3–June 8.

ADAMS AND OLLMAN: The Best Truth We Got, Elias Hansen.

Hansen’s new sculptures continue to explore his ongoing interest in Cascadian ecology, culture and politics, positing that frontier wildness is ecstatic and spiritual. Hansen draws from natural forms to experiment with glass and found materials in laboratory-esque, alchemical assemblages. Open through May 25.

DAY TRIP

TROPICAL CONTEMPORARY: Several events, Eugene, OR and elsewhere.

Tropical Contemporary artists will present a exhibition, Disappointing Weather Report, at CEI Artworks in Corvallis from May 16–June 18. On May 18 and May 25, the gallery will host costume construction workshops at Spectrum Bar in Eugene and the Eugene Public Library in preparation for their upcoming “Life’s a Drag” ball in June. May 24–June 1, Julian Harper’s solo show of photo and video works will be on view in the gallery space, with viewing hours on May 24, May 25 and June 1.

FRYE ART MUSEUM: Air, the free or unconfined space above the surface of the earth, Gretchen Frances Bennett. Seattle, WA.

Bennett’s atmospheric drawings combine “surface evidence” like tears and color irregularities with references to the fragmentary, intangible nature of memory. The works function as conceptual “nets” that organize and retain Bennett’s memories. Open through June 2.

VERONICA: Yet I, a Corpse, Drive, Steve Kado. Seattle, WA.

Steve Kado, a Canadian artist working with video, performance, sculpture and photography, presents a solo show at Veronica from May 18–June 22.

DITCH PROJECTS: Eclipse, Masami Kawai, and Yesterday’s and Today’s, Howard Fonda. Springfield, OR.

Masami Kawai, a filmmaker and cinema instructor at the University of Oregon, will present a body of work in Ditch Project’s Main space, while painter Howard Fonda will be featured in Ditch’s backspace. Open May 4–May 26.