Art happenings in innovative spaces offer a much-needed break from the mundanity of July’s summer heat. In Aurora, Fourteen30’s collaborative exhibition is nestled in the Courtyard House; in Ashland, Schneider Museum’s Art Beyond installs art in unexpected natural spaces; in Portland, Melina Bishop presents at Rubus Discolor Project, a gallery in a hundred-year-old house in North Portland. This month’s round-up includes opportunities for air-conditioned road trips, virtual viewings, and in-person openings at favorite local institutions. If you’re like me, your main priority is keeping cool—in which case livestreamed events at Performance Works Northwest and PNCA might be extra appealing. Read on for more information.

Bitter cherry, Bleeding heart
June 12 – August 15, 2021
Fourteen30 Contemporary with NO ARCHITECTURE
The Courtyard House, Aurora, OR (by appointment)

For the group exhibition Bitter cherry, Bleeding heart, Portland-based gallery Fourteen30 Contemporary collaborated with NO ARCHITECTURE, an internationally-renowned firm based in NYC. The exhibition, installed in Aurora in the NO ARCHITECTURE-designed Courtyard House, focuses on the works of Oregon-based artists like Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Rainen Knecht, and Iván Carmona. The glass-and-concrete home is surrounded by lush Oregon vegetation, and this relationship between the organic and the manufactured serves as inspiration for the artists’ works—some focus on restraint and precision, while others source materials like clay and porcelain straight from the earth.

Time Being
June 18 – August 8, 2021
Oregon Center for Contemporary Art (formerly Disjecta)
8371 N Interstate Ave (Fri-Sun 12 PM – 5 PM)

Time Being features artists working in a wide range of mediums, including Bean Gilsdorf, Lisa Jarrett, Jaleesa Johnston, Elizabeth Malaska, Maya Vivas, and Samantha Wall. Curated by Oregon Center for Contemporary Art’s Executive and Artistic Director, Blake Shell, this exhibition focuses on the body, reflecting on corporeal relationships with time, history, and identity. Formerly known as Disjecta, the Oregon Contemporary exhibition space is still at the same location. Learn more about their new name and other changes here.

Art Beyond
May 15 – July 18, 2021
Schneider Museum of Art
555 Indiana St, Ashland (Tue-Thur 10 AM – 4 PM)

The “outdoor art adventure” Art Beyond is the first project of its kind in the region; it features outdoor sculpture and installation works by twenty-four artists. Works are installed in sites within and surrounding Ashland, including Vesper Meadow, Lithia Park, Willow-Witt Ranch, Scienceworks Hands-On Museum, and Mt. Ashland. Vesper Meadow Restoration Preserve, a demonstration site for biocultural restoration and nature connection, will feature Signal Fire’s 2021 Tinderbox Artist in Residence Gabriel Barrera. Mt. Ashland, a community-focused ski area, will feature plein air artists and installations by Ben Buswell, Ryan Kitson, and others.

Tess Rubinstein: Pond Song
July 3 – 31, 2021
Stephanie Chefas Projects
305 SE 3rd Ave #202 (Thurs-Sat 1 PM – 6 PM)

Pond Song, Stephanie Chefas Projects’s second solo exhibit by painter/illustrator Tess Rubinstein, reflects on quietude and sensory memory of the rural California coastline. In reference to our past year of increased isolation, Pond Song considers ways to find patience, stillness, and liveliness through an intentional noticing of flora and fauna. Rubinstein, who hails from the Bay Area, is inspired by landscape, patchwork quilts, slow living practices, and the uninhibited female form.

Melina Bishop: Always Yours & Mine
June 11 – July 11, 2021
Rubus Discolor Project
1738 N Colfax St (by appointment)

Rubus Discolor Project, an exhibition space in a hundred-year-old house, was founded by artist Leslie Hickey in 2020 and has since hosted several exhibitions by Portland-based artists. Currently installed in the space is sculptor/installation artist Melina Bishop’s Always Yours & Mine, an exhibition of abstract sculpture in organic, textural shapes. The artist refers to them as her “inanimate family.” Book an appointment to view the exhibition here.

Lee Kelly: Recent Work
June 3 – July 31, 2021
Elizabeth Leach Gallery
417 NW 9th Ave (Tue-Sat 10:30 AM – 5:30 PM)

Revered Pacific Northwest artist Lee Kelly, best known for his large-scale public art sculptures, presents a new series of steel sculptures, cast bronze forms, and figurative watercolors at Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Inspired by his past writings, musings and studies, Kelly locates middle ground between modernist forms and ancient aesthetics in his sculptural work. The artist’s emphasis on texture, light, and patina celebrates the materiality of his forms.

Stacy Jo Scott: Lo, A Vase in the Dark
June 11 – July 24, 2021
Holding Contemporary
916 NW Flanders St (by appointment)

Stacy Jo Scott’s Lo, A Vase in the Dark features new ceramic and print works by the artist, who translates fragments of 3D scans and code-based processes into clay pieces. Through her practice’s consideration of fragmentation and collage, Scott envisions new bodies for partially-told stories, combining digital techniques with ancient skills of clay handworking. For Scott, this way of “reshaping” through clay references the body’s materiality and malleability.

Roundtable Discussion on Art and Economics
July 2, 2021
Pacific Northwest College of Art
Virtual

This discussion, organized as part of Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies’s Summer 2020 Lecture Series, features Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas, professor Nicholas Brown, Keyna Eleison (co-director of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro), and Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz (writer, curator and former director of Bolivia’s National Museum of Art). The four panelists will be prompted to address the ways in which art is determined by the current economic system and envision alternative models. RSVP and view other Summer 2021 events organized by the Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies here.

Hyun Jung Jung: Have You Had a Burger?
July 3 – August 1, 2021
Well Well Projects
8371 N Interstate Ave, #1 (Sat-Sun 12 PM – 5 PM)

Korean artist Hyun Jung Jung has encountered many loaded, intrusive questions while living in the United States—Have you had a burger?; Can you paint my nails?; Can you help me with my math homework?; Have you been to North Korea?; Do you have an English name?—which she reflects on in this series of interactive, kinetic, and performance art on view at Well Well Projects. The artist, who graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 2017, is also interested in pop culture and textiles, influences which come through clearly in her works.

Alembic Artist Series
Various dates throughout July
Performance Works Northwest
4625 SE 67th Ave, performances also available via livestream

As part of the Alembic Artists program at Performance Works Northwest, resident artists will share their work-in-progress performances throughout July (also viewable online). Performances include apogee by Hannah Krafcik and Emily Jones, a sci-fi-inspired reflection on the nervous system and bodily technologies, and Savannah Fuentes’s Flores de Verano, a Flamenco production with live music by Diego Amador, Jr., among other offerings.

Point of View
January 25, 2021 – TBD
Hallie Ford Museum of Art
700 State St, Salem (Tue-Sat 12 PM – 5 PM)

The Hallie Ford Museum’s ongoing series Point of View invites members of the Willamette University community to share their interpretations of a specific artwork via their area of expertise. Currently, Point of View features Dr. Catherine Lee, an oboist and the Artist Associate of oboe at Willamette University. Lee responds to Constance Fowler’s painting Tidal Drift (1960) through a performance of Alluvium (2016), written for her by composer Taylor Brook. The musical piece emphasizes senses of texture, movement, and spaciousness that Lee found within Fowler’s painting. You can listen to the Alluvium recording in-person at Hallie Ford, or access it via YouTube.