Portland has come out swinging in the field of art for 2010 with strong shows right and left, from regional masters to intriguing visitors, excellent group shows…and March looks just as good. Here are some shows you might hit.

Marker
Marie Watt
PDX Contemporary Art
925 NW Flanders

Show of new work by Watt including "Trunk," this incredible, sinuous cedar sculpture.

Clouds
Lucinda Parker
Laura Russo
805 NW 21st

Regional abstract expressionist powerhouse and longtime arts educator Parker with a show of new paintings inspired by the weather. Parker gives a talk Saturday, March 27, at 11 AM.

Letters from Switzerland
Melody Owen
Elizabeth Leach
417 NW 9th

"For Letters from Switzerland, using the tools and media of the Swiss-originated Dadaists, Owen created a precise and strange group of collages, examining feelings of dislocation and disconnection. Featuring bisected animals spilling flowers from their guts, and hotels sprouting roots that can’t find purchase, these works allude to the deracinated experience of the contemporary traveler."

Laurie Danial
Froelick Gallery
714 NW Davis

Abstract paintings by Danial that feature tracings, structures, transparencies, the built and the organic.

Grassland Alphabet
Seth Nehil
In House Gallery
625 NE Everett St. #106

"…calligraphic exercises – letter-forms constructed from waves and clusters of marks. I imagined a field of wheat attempting to form itself into words, a mute landscape swelling in the wind, blades of grass arranging and aligning themselves."

Constrain to Vertical
Brenda Mallory
DOPPLER PDX
625 NW Everett Street #109

Fabric wall pieces inspired by stacks of UPS “end-of-day” barcodes + Agnes Martin.

GRIP, GRASP, GROPE, AND FONDLE
Lucas Murgida
Autzen Gallery
2nd Floor PSU Neuberger Hall, Room 205, 724 SW Harrison

SF artist Murgida makes work through (and addressing) his work … conducting "research" while employed as cabinetmaking, restaurant work, locksmithing, and now yoga instruction. Artist talk/performance at opening.

Wrecking Crüe
IGLOO
625 NW Everett #102

Titled cute, this is a group show of work by Jordan Tull, Josh Smith, Salvatore Reda, Joshua Pavlacky, and Jeff Jahn (like the j-alliteration…should Salvatore change his first name?). Bullet points from the quite poetic statement:

+ constructed space
+ structural invention
+ half-made/half-undone
+ hypershapes
+ blueprints and Outer Space
+ rendering philosophical material from impulsive architecture

3X_PWN_TRANZ
Future Death Toll
Tractor
328 NW Broadway

sometimes when you pick up the pwn, you don’t know who is on the other line.
sometimes when you pick up the pwn, you do all the talking.
sometimes when you pick up the pwn, the pwn does all the talking for you.

I’m into the idea of "evidence of a past or future mission to transmit" as well as the machines of communication.