Visual Art

Arts Preview

Art Gallery and Museum Shows to See in Portland This Fall

An Ursula K. Le Guin exhibition, TBA, hagfish slime sculptures, and several very punk-rock women of hybrid identity.

08/06/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

I♥NY

What Portland’s First New York Art Gallery Means for the City

Is ILY2’s Manhattan outpost a local pipeline to the international art world?

08/01/2025 By Justin Duyao

Arts Preview

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

An archival feminist exhibit, Eugene’s “lesbian mecca,” 50 years of trans photography, and more.

05/13/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

the art world

Jess Ackerman: Between Making Art and ‘Making It’

Despite their ecstatically bright still lifes, the Portland painter is happiest lurking in the shadows.

04/28/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

talking trash

Artist-in-Residence, at the Dump

In the annual Glean program, artists rehash the city’s refuse. “Maybe this trash isn’t trash,” says the program manager.

04/16/2025 By Jaydra Johnson

at the gallery

Dinh Q. Lê’s Art Captured the Experience of Assimilation

At Elizabeth Leach Gallery, three decades of the internationally renowned Vietnamese American artist’s work juxtapose propaganda and documentary.

03/13/2025 By Jason N. Le

arts preview

5 Art Gallery and Museum Shows to See in Portland This Spring

More Monet at PAM, Dinh Q. Lê’s anti-propaganda, and the Holocaust’s long shadow.

02/11/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

at the museum

Please, Play with the Art

A new show at PSU’s Schnitzer museum celebrates play as a critical life force, and a means of political resistance.

01/30/2025 By Matthew Trueherz

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

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