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VizArts Monthly

Photograph of seven women in fashionable clothes posing for a picture together

VizArts Monthly: Belonging and community

Summer is going out with a confusing bang: The last two weeks of August were cool and rainy but September is starting with a heat wave! Fortunately the gallery scene is heating up, too.

Russo Lee Gallery looks to recovery

An adjacent restaurant fire Aug. 5 poured smoke and soot into the blue-chip gallery, coating everything. Now restorers are beginning to clean 1,500 artworks, and the gallery hopes to reopen in December or January.

Install view of Michelle Ross's Never an Even Folding at Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 2024. Image courtesy of Elizabeth Leach Gallery

Michelle Ross at Elizabeth Leach Gallery

“Never an Even Folding” features twelve paintings that confirm the painter’s deep knowledge of her medium and engagement with the Modernist tradition.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 16

Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of cultural profiles with portraits of choreographer Jessica Wallenfels, visual artist Ryan Pierce, poet and book editor Valerie Witte, actor/director Isaac Lamb, and choral leader Katherine Fitzgibbon.

Nia Musiba at One Grand Gallery pictured in her exhibition Unseasonably Warm, photo credit: Aaron Wessling / Portland Art Documentation

Nia Musiba’s spirals of expression

The artist’s second solo show at One Grand Gallery, “Unseasonably Warm,” features an identifiable lexicon of shapes. The story that unfolds in the works manages to be both intensely personal and universal.

The new Burnside Bridge: Options and choices

How best to replace Portland’s busy east-west span? Bridge designer Keith Brownlie of Britain’s BEAM Architects parses the best choice from a sextet of arches and cable-stays. Now the bridge committee has selected an inverted “Y” cable stay design.

PDX airport’s $2 billion reinvention takes flight

The designers of the Portland airport’s new terminal, opening Aug. 14, create an environmentally friendly, technologically innovative space that feels like a “first walk in an Oregon forest.”

Bright and colorful image of stripes within organic circles and large streaks of color in the background.

VizArts Monthly: Bursting with summer color

Despite July’s theme of slowing down, I still feel like it came and went so fast! Even so, my efforts did yield some results: I started noticing small details of my everyday life. One of those previously overlooked details was the vibrant

Painted seascape with cliff on the right

Waves of meaning in PAM’s French modernism shows

Lloyd DeWitt’s first shows as curator of European and American Art Pre-1930 at the Portland Art Museum offer crowd-pleasing beauty and deep questions about what museums and audiences look for in art.

VizArts Monthly: Slowing Down

As we head into July, art offerings around Oregon offer opportunities to slow down and contemplate memories, ancestors, and landscapes (among other things). Raylee Heiden rounds up some strong options.

gallery goers examine Bochner print

Mel Bochner at The Schnitzer Collection

‘Mel Bochner: Words Mean Everything’ is on view in the new gallery space at NW Yeon. Angela Allen sits down with Jordan Schnitzer to discuss the new show, the gallery space, and his vision for his art collection.

swirling letterpress text reading "I keep thinking until I know"

Alyson Provax’s islands of perception

The artist’s letterpress works lean into language’s incomplete capacity to describe feelings. Hannah Krafcik reviews “To know what we say we know,” on view through June at Well Well Projects.

Yes says no to gender stereotypes

Artist Phyllis Yes’s paintings of a man doing housework in the buff, banned from a church gallery, find a new home – and after a half-century, her nude model comes clean.

Gray hi-top Nike tennis shoe with white strap at angle

Cool shoes at Portland Art Museum

The shoes in ‘Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks’ are visually intriguing and push the boundaries of what constitutes a shoe. Laurel Reed Pavic has questions about arch support.

VizArts Monthly: Summer buzz

June brings new beginnings with warmer weather and an array of art opportunities. Raylee Heiden rounds up both indoor and “plein air” options.

white circular flowers and noxious green ivy against corrugated metal in a dry landscape

Ryan Pierce’s teeming landscapes

“Improbable Springs” at Elizabeth Leach Gallery features large-scale paintings that juxtapose the exuberance of nature with human-made discards.

The Cultural Landscape: Part 15

Photographer K.B. Dixon continues his series of cultural profiles with portraits of visual artist Chris Chandler, Miller Foundation leader Carrie Hoops, Caldera leader Kimberly Howard Wade, and writers Evan Morgan Williams and Steven L. Moore.

Terry Toedtemeier’s many forms

Blake Andrews interviews Prudence Roberts about the photographer and curator’s work, approach, and legacy. Toedtemeier’s photographs are featured in shows at JSMA in Eugene and PDX Contemporary Art in Portland.

Artists' booths arranged under the massive Corinthian columns of the historic National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Photo: courtesy of the Smithsonian Craft Show.

Oregon craft artists on the national stage

Three Oregon artists were selected for the 2024 Annual Smithsonian Craft Show, the country’s most prestigious juried show and sale of contemporary American craft.

PSU doubles down on its performance hall bid

The university’s revised design proposal for a Keller Auditorium replacement offers two venues in one: a Keller-sized 3,000-seat hall and a versatile 1,200-seat companion space.

Elbow Room takes on the contemporary art scene

A pair of “sister shows” at Elbow Room and ILY2 showcase a talented group of artists and the ingenuity of the close-knit community of the Portland art scene. The artists all work out of Elbow Room’s SE Portland studio and gallery.

Art on the Road: Sculptures with stories

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.

birds perched on a fir branch

R. Bruce Horsfall’s feathers and fauna

The exhibition at the Oregon Historical Society features Horsfall’s meticulous illustrations of birds from the Pacific Coast. Horsfall was a member of the Oregon Audubon Society and inspired by the artistic endeavors of the organization’s namesake, John James Audubon.

VizArts Monthly: Eclipse and transitions

May ushers in a shift in seasons (hopefully!) and the opportunity to shift perspectives. Jason N. Le offers, for the last time, a selection of not-to-be-missed art occasions and events.

Kim Murton’s clay art: Hug a cartoon

With their caricatured grins and exaggerated growls and grimaces, Murton’s works defy the notion that serious art needs to be … well, serious. Get ready to smile.

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