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Portland Monthly

Visual Art

All of the Lights

For the 10th Portland Winter Light Festival, Artists Look Forward

Since 2016, the Portland Winter Light Festival has illuminated the city with dramatic sculptures and interactive installations. This year, it imagines the future.

01/13/2025 By Brooke Jackson-Glidden

year in review

Portland Artists and Curators on their Favorite Shows from 2024

The art world moves fast. These are the shows that left their mark in the past year.

12/23/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Arts Preview

6 Art Gallery and Museum Shows to See in Portland This Winter

The season breaks from the regular art-going schedule, with a play-themed museum show, otherworldly paintings, and a chess party.

11/21/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

art review

Jeremy Okai Davis Paints the Complex Legacy of Black Performance

Past and present, vaudeville to Pryor to Kendrick, the stage has been a fraught mix of expression and oppression.

11/15/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

The Art World

Julian Gaines Is Bringing Jet Magazine to the Museum

After a nearby fire shut down the painter’s gallery show, his tribute to the influential Black magazine’s civil rights era moves to PAM.

10/21/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Au Musée

Getting Handsy with Monet’s Water Lilies at PAM

Stripping unwanted varnish gives the Impressionist masterpiece new life, and peels back some of the painting’s intimidating context.

10/14/2024 By Matthew Trueherz Photography by Jason Hill

Photobook

Protest City Photographer Rian Dundon’s Next Project Is a Quieter Ride

Post-divorce and post-COVID, the intimate photos in Dundon’s Passenger distill Portland’s normalized strife.

09/25/2024 By Matthew Trueherz Photography by Rian Dundon

Lingua Franca

Portland Artist Sidony O’Neal Mines Math and Art for Connective Tissue

What can mathematical proofs, linguistics, and swimming pool ladders teach us about each other?

08/13/2024 Photography by Jason Hill By Matthew Trueherz

At the Museum

The Portland Art Museum Is Having a Very French Summer

At the center of four shows is a traveling exhibit of fan-favorite Impressionist paintings. There are plenty of dots to connect, Monet to Bonnard.

07/31/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Work From Home

Inside Portland’s Residential Contemporary Art Galleries

How public exhibition spaces—in and around private homes—change our experience with art.

07/16/2024 By Matthew Trueherz Photography by Michael Novak

Popular Content

    5 Artists to See at Converge 45

    Painter Jeremy Okai Davis Doesn’t Sleep Much

    Umico Niwa Is Mother

    A Big Whoop-Whoop for the Portlandia Statue

    The Portland Art Gallery Where Age Is an Asset

    Portland Arts Week Isn’t Playing Around

Tradesies?

Soho House Deals in Social and Cultural Capital. But It Trades for Art.

With nearly 150 works from Portland’s biggest artists, the social club’s art collection paints a picture of the current art scene.

04/30/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

For Kicks

Back to the Future and into the Metaverse: 100-Plus Years of Sneakers at PAM

Marty McFly’s Nikes, those Big Red Boots, and a few pairs that literally don’t exist have plenty to tell us about ourselves.

04/12/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Old School

The Portland Art Gallery Where Age Is an Asset

Geezer Gallery (yes, it’s really called that), an exhibition space and arts center, is devoted to showing seniors’ work.

03/22/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Till Death

What Separates Tattoo Connoisseurs from Art Collectors?

For many patrons of the extraordinarily tactile medium, tattoos aren't so different from paintings.

03/11/2024 By Matthew Trueherz Photography by Jason Hill

Art Review

Janitors, Farmers, Landscapers: Invisible Work Made Visible in Labor of Love

At the Schnitzer Museum at Portland State University, eight international artists spotlight unseen workers.

03/04/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Self Portrait

Painter Jeremy Okai Davis Doesn’t Sleep Much

Graphic designer and father to two preschoolers by day, the celebrated portrait artist rewrites Black history in his backyard by night.

02/23/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

No Regerts

And the Most Commonly Removed Tattoos in Portland Are...

A professional tattoo remover explains the limits of erasing body art, from finger mustaches to microbladed eyebrows.

02/08/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Self Portrait

The Artist Who Volleys Ceramics, Papier-Mâché, Needlepoint, and Tennis?

Jessica Jackson Hutchins is chasing beauty and collecting old couches, but she’d rather be on the courts.

02/02/2024 By Matthew Trueherz Photography by Michael Raines

Art Review

Artist Pace Taylor’s Emotions Are Unmistakably Visible

In their third solo show at Nationale, the rising star plumbs new depths of desire and anxiety.

02/01/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Fit to Print

How Helen Frankenthaler Turned Prints into Art

At the Oregon Jewish Museum, a retrospective catalogs the artist’s allergy to doing what was expected of her—mainly, making traditional art.

01/12/2024 By Matthew Trueherz

Latest Issue

Spring 2026

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