Spring is in full-swing and the galleries are blooming. A new pop-up appears on Alberta, LACMA loans PAM a 17th-century masterpiece, and Wolff gallery presents the wild self-portraiture of Rachel Mulder, an artist as comfortable making images with typewriters as she is making them with human hair. We’ve got some exciting group shows at Littman Gallery, the Portland Japanese Garden, and Roll-Up Gallery, spanning painting, book arts, and traditional ceramics. Get out there and enjoy the sun and the art!
Masterworks | Portland: Georges de La Tour
April 13 – October 13, 2019
Portland Art Museum
1219 SW Park Avenue
This is the sixth painting featured in PAM’s Masterworks | Portland series, a program focused on individual paintings from major historical artists whose work is not found in the museum’s permanent collection. Georges de La Tour is known for his exceptional use of light, especially his nighttime scenes with artificial sources of light. This portrait of Mary Magdalen, on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is a striking example of his talents.
aRT.pdx
April 25th – May 13th
Temporary gallery
1603 Alberta St.
A three-week, pop-up gallery featuring five artists from the Northwest and beyond – Helday de la Cruz, Joshua Flint, Alexandra Becker-Black, Jeremy Okai Davis, Samir Khurshid, and Samuel Eisen-Meyers. Painting, portraiture, and the human figure form through-lines in this group show. Davis’s portraiture, Flint’s dreamy “memoryscapes” and de la Cruz’s illustrative engagement with identity seem to be in dialogue with each other and are joined by Becker-Black’s watercolors and Eisen-Meyers’ themes of “social reality.” The gallery will be open every day during the run of the show.
Northern Lights: Ceramic Art of Hokkaido Revisited
April 27 – May 27, 2019
Portland Japanese Garden
611 SW Kingston Road
Sponsor
This spectacular ceramic art exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the Hokkaido Pottery Society and ten years since its initial exhibition at the Portland Japanese Garden. The 60-year-old, sister-city relationship between Portland and Sapporo has resulted in a long-standing relationship between the Hokkaido Pottery Society and Oregon Pottery Association which in turn has resulted in many reciprocal exhibitions. This one at the Japanese Garden promises to be one of the finest. Guest curated by Sachiko Matsuyama, this show features major works by 21 established artists of the Hokkaido Pottery Society as well as material from its talented broader membership.
Odette: Larissa Lockshin
May 3 – June 8
Melanie Flood Projects
420 SW Washington St., #301
New York artist Larissa Lockshin’s first solo show in Portland tackles the cultural construction of “woman” as an “absolute category.” The press release continues “this regime of representation has naturalized woman as image, beautiful to look at, defined by her looks.” The title of the exhibition comes from the leading role in the ballet Swan Lake; the compositions address Degas’s famous ballerinas. Rather than flat images, the ballerinas here are actors in their own right. In the sparer, abstract works that round out the show, Lockshin’s signature tulip shapes seem to echo tutus.
Self Portrait Party: Rachel Mulder
May 1–June 30, 2019
Wolff Gallery
2804 SE Ankeny St.
Though she trained in printmaking at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Mulder finds novel, surprising uses for a wide variety of media in the service of constructing images, often self-portraits. Best known of these are her detailed, expressive “drawings” that use heavily layered text from manual typewriters. She calls this show “a weird party on paper, featuring past, present, and future selves.” Selections from her Showerfriend series will also be featured in this show, in which she makes fantastical faces out of loose hair plastered to the wall of her shower.
Plane of Scattered Pasts: Heidi Schwegler and Quayola
Upfor Gallery
929 NW Flanders St.
May 2 – June 22, 2019
This exhibition focuses on ordinary objects and their “inexorable fragmentation” – a sort of meditation on the inevitability of aging, breaking, and changing. Schwegler embellishes and recasts the material and function of the objects at hand. London-based artist Quayola brings video, software, and installation to the conversation, investigating the boundary between real and artificial spaces and things. Schwegler will be present at the preview which runs from 5:30 to 7:30 on Wednesday, May 1.
Sponsor
Leaves of Resistance
May 3 – 31
Roll-Up Gallery
1715 SE Spokane St.
This show features a range of works from The Secret Society of Book Artists including handmade books, boxes, and installations. Calligraphy, marbling and natural impression dyeing are among the many techniques on display in the works by this politically engaged group launched by OCAC and PNCA instructor Marilyn Zornado more than a decade ago. This exhibition is inspired by the life and works of Walt Whitman. The closing gala on May 31st celebrates the 200th anniversary of Whitman’s birth and will feature screenings and poetry readings in partnership with Passages Bookshop. Artists include Dawn Banker, Anita Bigelow, Marian Christensen, Mary Elliott, Ellen Fortin, Joely Helgesen, Judilee Fitzhugh, Deanna Lautenbach, Megan Leftwich, Ilsa Perse, Kathy Karbo, Kathy Kuehn, Bernie Smith, Gay Walker, and Marilyn Zornado.
Opening Champagne Reception
Friday, May 3
5–9 PM
Show Closing & Walt Whitman Birthday Celebration
Friday, May 31
7 PM
Under Pressure
May 6 – 22, 2019
Littman Gallery
1825 SW Broadway
Littman Gallery’s 7th Annual juried exhibition, curated by Srijon Chowdhury and Safiyah Maurice, brings a robust lineup of artists to the PSU gallery. The roster includes Sara Ayers, Alexandra Burnap, Chloe Friedlein, Courtney Gallardo, Josh Gates, and Hanna Gentile. Chowdhury calls the show “a little dark fairytale-ish” and describes it as a journey into a mysterious, wild place: “Did I come here by myself? I don’t think that this is where I want to be, but it wont let me turn back. I’m not afraid.” A reception will be held on Wednesday, May 15, 5–8 PM
Sponsor
