November is upon us and brings with it a time change and shift to cooler weather. The holidays and end of the year approach. I feel like the colder it gets the more I’m inclined to stay home but warm coffee shops and art galleries beckon as well. Art venues this month invite us to venture out with a variety of exhibitions that highlight the benefits of exploration of all kinds.
In Portland, Paragon Arts Gallery invites viewers to ponder the cycles of the natural world in Epiphany Couch’s photographs. Ron Bunch’s work uses paper collage to consider climate change and the environment of the deep ocean at Don Dexter Gallery in Eugene. If you’re more drawn to human-made structures consider music posters at the Portland Art Museum, graffiti at North View Gallery, or Richard Serra’s printmaking at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. If you’ve got holiday gift giving on your mind, The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts is hosting The Curio which is both an exhibition and arts market.
Graffiti as Resistance
November 5- December 13
North View Gallery
PCC Sylvania Campus, 12000 SW 49th Avenue, Portland, OR
Graffiti as Resistance explores graffiti mapping in Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, and Portland. Research by Dr. Lorena Nascimento and Cherise Frehner have documented and archived graffiti in Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. Now in Portland, Nascimento and Frehner’s work is shown alongside the work and documentation from Don’t Shoot Portland. In 2021, Don’t Shoot Portland preserved the graffiti panels that covered the Apple Store in downtown Portland. Viewers will see reproductions of the 2020 murals from downtown Portland, as well as archives of graffiti from Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. Overall, this exhibition explores graffiti’s capacity for storytelling, the intentions of the people who document it, and how graffiti can be an art of resistance.
Unknown Objectives
Sally Finch and Owen Premore
November 7- November 30
Gallery 114
1100 NW Glisan St, Downstairs, Portland, OR
Sally Finch and Owen Premore explore questions surrounding technology, data, collage, sculpture, and paint in Unknown Objectives. In this exhibition, Finch will show works she developed during her residency at Pine Meadow Ranch Center for the Arts and Agriculture. The first series in this exhibition, The Seasons, explores visual figuration of the daily high and low temperatures alongside the sunrise and sunset for one year in the form of paintings. The second series, The Months consists of collaged works that feature meditations on daily activities such as art making, gardening, and preparing food. Owen Premore’s sculptures are from his series Heavy Time and are all fashioned of repurposed material. They are often both noisy and interactive, engaging the audience by presenting a recognizable object in a new way.
Before the Fire Lit My Dreams
Epiphany Couch
November 13- January 11
Paragon Arts Gallery
815 N. Killingsworth St. Portland, Oregon 97217
Sponsor
The 24 photographs on display at Paragon Arts Gallery of Epiphany Couch’s family, tribal lands, and waterways explore the rhythms that shape life from the land, each other, and the changing seasons. She blurs the lines between past and present using medium-format double-exposure images and poetic text. Couch highlights humanity’s relationship to planetary cycles, time, memory, and nature and invites the audience to rediscover their place in the cycles of the natural world and question the disconnection from the cycles in our modern world.
Second Glances
Amy Bennett, Cherie Savoie Tintary, Heather Smith
November 5- December 20
Hillsboro Civic Center
150 E Main St, Hillsboro, OR 97123
Artists Amy Bennett, Cherie Savoie Tintary, and Heather Smith manipulate paper to tell stories in their group exhibition. Amy Bennett uses ink and cut paper to explore shape, texture, meaning, and the transformative power of language. Cherie Savoie Tintary started collaging to heal from her battle with lung cancer in 2020. In the present day, she teaches free collage workshops and focuses on community building which helps her create imaginative worlds inside her colorful collages that spark joy in her viewer. Heather Smith’s paper quilling work, a form of art that uses strips of rolled and shaped paper to create images, explores the intricate and beautiful details of the natural world.
Paula Champagne and Betsy McCarthy
October 25- November 30
Multnomah Arts Center
7688 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR, 97219
A two person exhibition on display at the Multnomah Arts Center features artists Paula Champagne and Besty McCarthy. This exhibition combines Champagne’s nature-based illustrations and McCarthy’s organic glass sculptures. While both artists work with nature based themes and ideas, Champagne’s work explores the healing intersection of Blackness, nature, and rest. McCarthy explores the “magic” of the materiality of glass to create sculptures that dance with their environment.
Ron Bunch: Paper and Paint – Collage Landscape Expressions
Ron Bunch
November 9- December 21
Don Dexter Gallery
2911 Tennyson Ave #202, Eugene, OR 97408
Influenced by the natural landscapes of rural Oregon and Arkansas, Ron Bunch creates landscapes interpreted through painted rice paper and archival tissue collaged onto board. Bunch’s process of painting, tearing, and reassembling allows him to explore themes of climate change and the deep ocean in his colorful collages. Bunch’s patterns and natural forms engage beauty and how humans relate to nature.
Sponsor
The Curio
November 1- December 23
The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts and The Beaverton Arts Market
12625 SW Crescent St, Beaverton, OR 97005
In collaboration with the Beaverton Arts Market, The Reser presents The Curio, an exhibition and arts market. This exhibition celebrates the artwork and diversity of Pacific Northwest artists and artisans. Explore various forms of art from over 50 artists including paintings, drawings, photographs, ceramics, jewelry, glass, wood, and more! Pick up a gift for the holidays or engage with the local art communities with The Curio.
Swimming with a Melting Crown
Paige Wright
November 1- November 30
Chefas Projects
134 SE Taylor St Suite 203, Portland, OR 97214
Swimming with a Melting Crown is ceramicist Paige Wright’s second solo exhibition at Chefas Projects. Wright’s figurative sculptures embrace the varied capacities, experimentation and science of the ceramic medium. This interest in process and materiality is expressed in the vibrant colors of decorative glazes inspired by drag makeup and patterning. The sculptures explore themes of identity, adornment, and beauty and weave together fluidity and transformation.
The Only Way to Hold a Weight
Curated by Daniel Duford
October 26- January 12
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education
724 NW Davis St, Portland, OR 97209
Curated from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation by Daniel Duford, this exhibition features 18 prints by Richard Serra. While Serra is best known for his large-scale steel sculptures and architectural designs, he also maintained a vibrant drawing and printmaking practice. Serra’s monochromatic prints conceive of the color black as both a medium and material that absorbs light and manifests itself as weight. Explore the tension, weight, mass, and materiality of black in Serra’s work at the Oregon Jewish Museum.
Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s
Curated by Mary Weaver Chapin
October 19- March 30
The Portland Art Museum
1219 SW Park Ave, Portland, OR
Sponsor
Portland Art Museum’s latest exhibition, Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s, showcases the passion, creativity, and expression of the iconic rock posters of the ‘60s. Youth, music, and art converged as alternative lifestyles challenged traditional cultural norms. This exhibit features more than 200 posters including notable works by the top five designers, Rick Griffin, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, and Wes Wilson. The exhibition is an opportunity to explore the altered, psychedelic state of consciousness, vibrating color, provocative design, and creativity of the ‘60s.
