The doldrum days of winter won’t last long with this month’s art offerings, which include everything from thoughtful creations with dump-sourced materials to techy installations at Portland Art Museum and experimental sound performances at PICA. For those whose SAD lamps aren’t doing the trick, try human connection this month—IPRC is offering a range of workshops and community events, and PNCA’s Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies lecture series continues.

On that note, I’d be remiss not to mention that this will be my last VizArts Monthly column. I’ll be focusing on other projects, but you’ll still be able to read my suggestions on artsy things to do over at EverOut, if you’re so inclined. I’ll dearly miss compiling the best Oregon arts events for the ArtsWatch audience, but this experience has been a continual reminder to “fill my visual well,” and I hope it’s had the same effect on you! Thank you for reading.

Jose Bonell: The Indiscreet Night
January 21 – February 18
Adams and Ollman
418 NW 8th Ave, Portland (Weds-Sat 11 am – 4 pm)

Barcelona-based artist Jose Bonell honors “subtleties and small moments” in his pensive, playful practice. The Indiscreet Night features 25 oil paintings that exist in harmonious conversation with one another—rendered in luxe, dreamy neutrals, Bonell fills each canvas with slight, slyly humorous gestural marks that aren’t overly fussy.

GLEAN Annual Artists-in-Residence Exhibition
February 2 – March 11
Parallax Art Center
516 NW 14th Avenue, Portland (Mon-Sat 10 am – 5 pm)

Each year, juried art program GLEAN (a partnership between between Metro, waste management company Recology, and nonprofit Cracked Pots) invites five artists to contemplate their consumption habits by making artworks with materials collected from the Metro Central Transfer Station—that’s right, “the dump.” This exhibition highlights works created by the program’s 2022 participating artists, Val Britton, Maddy Dubin, Joshua Sin, Ahuva S. Zaslavsky, and Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani.

Creations of Spirit
January 28 – October 1
High Desert Museum
59800 US-97, Bend (open daily 10 am – 4 pm through March 31, 9 am – 5 pm after March 31)

Sponsor

Aiming to honor Indigenous Plateau perspectives and the knowledge systems of Columbia River tribes, Creations of Spirit commissioned six Native artists to create new works to be utilized within Native communities before arriving at the museum. (A seventh artist, RYAN! Feddersen, created an “interactive piece for the center of the gallery.”) The multimedia exhibition includes baskets by Colville artist Joe Feddersen and Warm Springs artist Natalie Kirk, Cayuse and Nez Perce artist Phillip Cash Cash Ph.D.’s traditional Plateau flutes, a tule reed canoe and paddles by Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs artist Jefferson Greene, and more. If you’re curious about the High Desert Museum, check out this article by Steph Littlebird from the “Indigenous Resilience in Oregon” series.

a community is a small town
January 18 – March 4
Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
12625 SW Crescent St, Beaverton (Weds-Sat 12-6 pm)

If you haven’t yet visited Beaverton’s state-of-the-art new performance center, the exhibition a community is a small town is the perfect reason to stop by. Artists working at Elbow Room, North Pole, Living Studios, and Oregon Supportive Living Programs Arts & Culture Center will share new works at this group exhibition, which will span mediums and showcase the wide-ranging processes found within the four regional neurodivergent art studios.

Hito Steyerl: This is the Future
February 11 – May 27
Portland Art Museum
1219 SW Park Ave, Portland (Weds-Sun 10 am – 5 pm)

Forward thinker Hito Steyerl’s “vibrant, imagined garden” features video sculptures, short film, and an an augmented reality (AR) experience for viewers. The German filmmaker thinks carefully about everything from the climate crisis to global capitalism in This Is the Future, which makes sense—the immersive, futuristic exhibition functions as an apt reflection of the worries faced by its viewers every day.

Wing K. Leong 60 Years: Painting and Calligraphy
February 10 – May (TBD)
Portland Chinatown Museum
127 NW 3rd Ave, Portland (Fri-Sun 11 am – 3 pm)

This exhibition of master Chinese brush painter and calligrapher Wing K. Leong’s expertly rendered works spans his 60-year career, during which he immigrated to the United States, attended the Museum Art School (now known as PNCA), and owned the Chinese Art Studio in downtown Portland.

Sponsor

Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies Lecture Series
February 8 (Rehanah Spence) and 22 (Stuart Getty)
Pacific Northwest College of Art
511 NW Broadway, Portland

The Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies lecture series continues this month with talks led by Rehanah Spence, who draws from her “dualistic” upbringing to inform fer graphic design leadership work at Google Brand Studio, and Stuart Getty, an access-driven writer, brand strategist, and filmmaker.

Diego Moreno: In My Mind There is Never Silence
February 2-25
Blue Sky Gallery
122 NW 8th Avenue, Portland (Weds-Sat 12-5 pm)

The scapegoat-like presences of panzudos mercedarios, folkloric monsters found in La Merced, in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, take center stage in Diego Moreno’s solo exhibition, which possesses a deceptive sense of calm. In My Mind There is Never Silence is teeming with the uneasiness found in the everyday, and grapples with the photographer’s attraction to the anomalous.

Community Events
Select dates in February
Independent Publishing Resource Center
318 SE Main St #145 and #155, Portland

IPRC kicks it up a notch this month with a wide range of community offerings, including a reading with the current participants of their creative writing portfolio program, a hybrid collage session, a Valentine’s Day card-printing session, and a workshop for trans and nonbinary writers looking to be published in literary journals. There’s really no excuse not to check out the space, which offers affordable, community-minded access to tools and book and print resources.

Flowers for Black Elders, curated by Onry and Joni Whitworth
January 27 – February 26
Nationale
15 SE 22nd Ave, Portland (Mon and Thurs-Sat 11 am – 6 pm, Sun 12-5 pm)

Sponsor

Add Flowers for Black Elders to your “do not miss” list for Black History Month. City of Portland artists-in-residence Onry and Joni Whitworth (founder of Future Prairie) present this multimedia project, which blends portraits by Brett Brown with oral history interview recordings by Whitworth. Inspired by opera singer Onry’s desire to honor his mentors, the exhibition spotlights musicians Mel Brown, Alonzo Chadwick, Libretto Jackson, Derrick McDuffy, and Saeeda Wright.

Remembering to Remember: Experiments in Sound
February 17 – March 19
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art
15 NE Hancock St, Portland (gallery hours Fri 12-6 pm, Sat-Sun 12-4 pm; performance and workshop dates/times vary)

In typical PICA fashion, Remembering to Remember: Experiments in Sound is a multi-pronged experience: the celebration of experimental sound is comprised of live performances, workshops, and characteristically cutting-edge work. Curated by Roya Amirsoleymani and musical artist Felisha Ledesma, Remembering to Remember also includes an exhibition of contemporary makers working in moving image and sound, with pieces by Synth Library Portland, Takashi Makino, Nyokabi Kariũki, Crystal Quartez, and others.