Oregon ArtsWatch

Arts & Culture News
Independent. Insightful. Inspiring.

Friderike Heuer

Friderike Heuer is a photographer and photomontage artist. Trained as an experimental psychologist at the New School for Social Research, she taught at Lewis & Clark College until she retired to pursue art full time. Her cultural blog www.heuermontage.com explores art and politics on a daily basis through photography and commentary. She has exhibited most recently at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education and Camerawork Gallery, on issues concerning migrants and refugees. She frequently volunteers as a photographer for small, local arts non-profits. For more information, visit www.friderikeheuer.online.

A way forward from the homeless crisis

September 20, 2025Friderike Heuer

The Oregon Historical Society's exhibition of Jim Lommasson's close look at the work of Portland's Street Roots newspaper reveals the face of poverty and suggests ways to break the cycle.

Art on the Road: Some thoughts on heritage

September 6, 2025Friderike Heuer

Discovering the pioneer pleasures of Thompson's Mills, Oregon's newest State Heritage Site, and the loss of a deeper Indigenous history in the closure of Five Oaks Museum.

Art on the Road: Framing the World

July 23, 2025Friderike Heuer

A California exhibit of "doubled" artwork pairing different artists from Goya and Chagoya to Lorna Simpson, Naomi Savage and James Van Der Zee frames the ways we see and interpret the world around us.

Art on the Road: Is there a safe place?

June 14, 2025Friderike Heuer

As massive protests rise from L.A. to D.C., three exhibitions at the California African American Museum and the Benton Museum of Art Pomona College tackle questions of how to live with oppression, instability, and an uncertain future.

Kristie Strasen: A world not of this world

April 20, 2025Friderike Heuer

In the studio with the textile artist as she creates "River Stories," an abstract "map" in yarn of the Columbia River, set to open in June at the Columbia Gorge Museum.

At the Japanese Garden, a world of contrasts and co-mingling

April 1, 2025Friderike Heuer

As visitors view the blooms of early spring, the garden unveils other forms of beauty: a wealth of ceramic and stenciled art echoing and expanding on the natural world.

‘Seeking Warmth’: A Romani artist who survived the Holocaust paints memories gentle and harsh

March 17, 2025Friderike Heuer

At Art at the Cave gallery in Vancouver, Wash., the work of Ceija Stoika is haunted by harsh realities: "I fear that Europe is forgetting its past and that Auschwitz is only asleep."

Just Playin’ Around: Seriously? Of course.

February 22, 2025Friderike Heuer

A new exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU explores the links between exploring childlike creativity and engaging the larger worlds of culture and the mind.

Phantasmagoria: On the collision of art and politics

December 17, 2024Friderike Heuer

As we enter a new era of deep cultural divide, old ideas of male dominance are on the rise, echoing ideas in traditional art. New art overlaid on the old can tell a more equitable social story.

Art on the Road: On the Oregon coast, a crossover of art and nature

September 23, 2024Friderike Heuer

A "PaintOut" tradition with friends, begun by artist Nelson Sandgren in 1978 and carried forward by his son Erik, gets a lively retrospective at Oregon State University's Giustina Gallery.

‘Tree People’: The life and lore of the forest

July 19, 2024Friderike Heuer

Finnish photographers Ritva Kovalainen and Sanni Seppo create a stellar thicket of visual and environmental images on view at Portland's World Forestry Center.

Between Two Worlds: Leonora Carrington and David Seymour (Chim) at the Oregon Jewish Museum

July 6, 2024Friderike Heuer

Exhibits of a major Surrealist artist getting her due and a photographer known for his images of children amid war give rise to a host of cultural connections.

Art as Witness: Quilting a slave’s story

June 15, 2024Friderike Heuer

In the exhibition "Ms. Molly's Voice" at the Columbia Gorge Museum, a collection of family quilts reveals beauty, pain, remembrance, and secret signs along the Underground Railroad.

Spread Peace: Yoko Ono’s installation at Portland Japanese Garden

June 7, 2024Friderike Heuer

For four days, the Portland garden joins others around the world in the artist and peace activist's almost 30-year project of creating and adorning Wish Trees in pursuit of peace.

Art on the Road: Sculptures with stories

May 4, 2024Friderike Heuer

As a Vancouver show tells multiple tales, an inspiring exhibit at California's Huntington Library concentrates on a single artist: the chronicler of Black life Sargent Claude Johnson.

Art on the Road: ‘Imagined Fronts – The Great War and Global Media’ at LACMA

April 13, 2024Friderike Heuer

"We might not be interested in war, but war will be interested in us": An expansive Los Angeles exhibit on propaganda and art during World War I has parallels to the war-torn world of today.

Stitching stories: What to do with the past?

March 12, 2024Friderike Heuer

At Art in the Cave in Vancouver, Ruth Ross and other artists stitch and weave tales that open up many questions.

Songs from the Congo

February 13, 2024Friderike Heuer

Looking at "Black Artists of Oregon" and "Africa Fashion" at the Portland Art Museum.

Talent, emerging: New artists at The Reser

January 12, 2024Friderike Heuer

A new exhibit at the Beaverton art center showcases a variety of rising artists displaying fresh work that engages in many kinds of conversations.

Christopher Pothier: In the eye of the beholder

December 31, 2023Friderike Heuer

In a show of paintings at the Columbia Gorge Museum, the artist reveals a Realism beyond reality – and a gnarly Medusa-like image blowing in the wind.

Judy Margles: Farewell to a Founder

December 4, 2023Friderike Heuer

Margles, the longtime executive director of the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, retires after 24 years of inspired leadership.

Surrealism and Subversion at The Getty

November 24, 2023Friderike Heuer

Art on the Road: In Los Angeles, links to past and present, peace and war in the art of William Blake and Arthur Tress

Art on the Road: At the Museum of Latin American Art

November 9, 2023Friderike Heuer

In a Southern California museum dedicated to the work of Latin American artists, a trio of exhibitions offer food for thought and a feast for the eyes.

Art on the Road: Made in L.A. 2023

October 21, 2023Friderike Heuer

A bold exhibition at the Hammer Museum reveals the City of Angels from street level, basking in the textures of the city's past and its roiling, often overlooked contemporary realities.

From ordinary to extraordinary: Takahiro Iwasaki’s push on perspective

October 4, 2023Friderike Heuer

A new exhibit by the Portland Japanese Garden's artist-in-residence looks with fresh eyes on the cultural meanings of Kyoto's Rashomon Gate.

Resilient, flexible, forgiving: The gifts of Lillian Pitt

September 29, 2023Friderike Heuer

A ramble through public art spaces and a new exhibit at Salem's Bush Barn Art Center that Pitt calls her last public show reveals the heart and spirit of a remarkable and beloved artist.

Endless Pigeons: Malia Jensen at The Reser

August 25, 2023Friderike Heuer

The Portland artist's stack of birds in The Reser's plaza brings something special to the Converge 45 biennial: a touch of joy.

Ka’ila Farrell-Smith’s Ghosts in the Machine

August 21, 2023Friderike Heuer

At Russo Lee Gallery, an Indigenous artist's images suggest a "green colonialism" in which extraction of minerals for new technology once again overrides tribal rights.

Taking stock of the body

August 14, 2023Friderike Heuer

Using body casts, human hair, and melted aluminum, new work by Kate Simmons at Clackamas Community College's Alexander Gallery explores ideas about body image and decay.

Social Forms: Art as Global Citizenship

August 7, 2023Friderike Heuer

In partnership with CONVERGE 45, The Reser presents art with pointed questions and an international outlook by Jorge Tacla, Karl LeClair, Malia Jensen and Miroslav Lovric.