The Latest

Don’t Be Clever, Be True: Late Works by David Eckard, Curated by Daniel Duford at PNCA - 511 NW Broadway, until June 27, 2026 ✨Public reception: Thursday, June 4, 5-8 pm This memorial exhibition honors the artistic achievement and community impact of David Eckard, an artist and educator who touched the lives of generations of students, having served as Associate Professor and Head of the Sculpture Department of PNCA from 2000-2025. This title of the exhibition, Don’t Be Clever, Be True, is taken from a note written on the wall of David’s studios in the last years before his death. While Eckard was primarily known for sculpture and performance, works in the exhibition include paintings and 2D constructions completed in the last decade of his life. These works, many never publicly shown, capture the technical prowess, poetic wit, and beautiful strangeness indicative of Eckard’s work.

Seeing the What: A Pop-Up Art Exhibition by The Lobby @ The Writers’ Block @thelobbypdx @thewritersblock.studio n First Thursday May 7th | 5-8pm Live Jazz Music by the Meg Samples Trio (Meg Samples Morrow, Mieke Bruggeman, Mont Chris Hubbard) Titled Seeing the What, the exhibition takes inspiration from Henry David Thoreau’s observation: “The real question is not what you look at, but what you see.” The show explores perception, interpretation, and the shifting meaning of images through works by Brandon Ballengée, Erica Baum, Joe Brainard, Matt Connors, Leonardo Drew, David Hockney, Lonnie Holley, Robert Indiana, Alex Katz, Vik Muniz, Ronny Quevedo, Deborah Roberts, and Ranjani Shettar. Spanning painting, collage, sculpture, photography, and printmaking, Seeing the What invites viewers to reconsider how meaning is constructed—and how it changes through the act of looking. 📌Featured work by Deborah Roberts.

Sweet moments all around in ☁️ Soft Connections ☁️ @fiskgallery at @wiedenkennedy — @kentarookawara @niamusiba @yaymarshamack. This show is fun, colorful and oh so easy on the eyes. Got to view it at the #collectorspreview yesterday, show opens to the public tonight.

Boundless/Duration New Work by Phil Harris 📍Gallery 114 🗓️May 7–30, 2026 ✨Opening reception: First Thursday, May 7, 5–8 pm In this exhibition, gallery member Phil Harris pairs two bodies of photographic work: Duration and Boundless. The Duration work started a decade ago, and involves patient, formal documentation of various processes of time and change. Boundless is a more recent, more open-ended and intuitive body of work, asking questions about light, color and form. Both types of work respond to the complexity, wonder and fluid nature of this living world. *There will also be an artist Q&A at the gallery on Saturday, May 23rd, from 10:30am-12pm.* Phil Harris has been a Portland-based photographer since the late Cretaceous. His work has been shown around the US and in Europe, and is in numerous public and private collections. #artandaboutpdx #gallery114 #contemporaryart

Dedication, Artists: Pamela Hadley, Hannah Newman, Yuyang Zhang, Tammy Jo Wilson, Curated by Tammy Jo Wilson Building on the momentum of its inaugural exhibition, CCAC’s Guest Curatorial Program spotlights Portland-based curators, organizations, and artists to present ambitious exhibitions. Dedication is a group exhibition featuring artists whose practices engage the tension between creative work and the structures that sustain and often strain them. The exhibition considers the invisible labor artists contribute to institutions, communities, and professional spaces, and asks how creativity can be sustained amid competing demands. Artists bring essential skills to the world: imagination, critical inquiry, empathy, systems thinking, and visionary problem-solving. Yet these contributions are frequently undervalued in professional contexts and disconnected from the artist’s own creative growth. Dedication reframes artistic practice as both a cultural resource and a site of personal and collective care. Through diverse media and approaches, the artists explore the relationships between technology, ancestry, nature, and contemporary life. Their works draw from ecological systems, inherited knowledge, digital tools, and embodied experience, proposing creativity as a connective force across time and space. Rather than framing dedication as sacrifice alone, the exhibition presents it as a practice of balance and regeneration. Dedication considers: What is lost when creative labor is extracted without care? And what futures emerge when artists are supported as thinkers, makers, and cultural architects? By centering poetic intelligence, material inquiry, and imaginative resilience, Dedication invites audiences to reconsider how artistic labor is valued—and how communities and institutions might cultivate conditions in which artists can truly flourish. This exhibition reclaims artistic practice as a critical and generative way of knowing. Tammy Jo Wilson is a Black artist, curator, speaker, and facilitator dedicated to creating inclusive spaces where art serves as a catalyst for connection, dialogue, and change.

PNCA BFA Thesis students 📍PNCA, 511 NW Broadway, Portland, OR 97209 🗓️April 27 – May 10, 2026 ✨Public Reception: First Thursday, May 7, 5– 8 pm This annual exhibition marks the culmination of creative exploration, critical inquiry, and artistic innovation by the Bachelors candidates at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. The exhibition and reception is free and open to the public. #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #bfa #artshow

Resilience Is Our Nature, by Susan Harrington 📍Waterstone Gallery, 124 NW 9th Ave., Portland ⏳ Hours: Wed-Sat 11 a.m. -5:30 p.m., Sun 11-4 🗓️ May 6 – 31, 2026 ✨Opening reception: First Thursday, May 7th, 5:00-8pm 🎟️ Free to the public New exhibition of oil paintings by Susan Harrington. Focusing on nature, and native and endangered plants threatened by agricultural development, habitat loss, and climate change, Harrington explores the quiet strength required to survive in increasingly hostile environments. Using both contemporary alla prima techniques and the layered luminosity of 17th- and 18th-century oil painting methods, Harrington creates works that balance immediacy with depth. The vitality of wet-into-wet brushwork contrasts with the slow accumulation of transparent glazes. Through these botanical subjects, Harrington draws thoughtful parallels to contemporary life shaped by artificial intelligence, social media, political upheaval, war, and environmental instability. “Resilience Is Our Nature” proposes that endurance is not a rare heroic act, but an intrinsic capacity and that nature teaches us that survival is creative, that adaptation is generative, and that hope is not naïve—it is evolutionary. #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #oilpainting #landscape

Robin Kerr, With the Windows Wide Open — Playful, colorful, abstract paintings that delight in the transitory nature of everyday moments James Florschutz, Sounds of Memory — Assemblage sculpture by# with an ever-deepening fascination with memory 📍Laura Vincent Design & Gallery, 824 NW Davis St. 🗓️May 7 - June 13, 2026 ⏳Hours: Tues-Sat, 11 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. ✨First Thursday Opening Reception: May 7, 5-8 pm A Dialogue with the Artists: May 23, 11 am 🎟️ Free to the public Info/artist statements on shows: 🪟🎨Recently, I have become more deliberate about being completely satisfied with each individual element as well as satisfied with the whole, and therefore have been brutal about removing things that don’t work in either evaluation. That seems to be related to avoiding too much shouty-ness. I need each individual element to have enough space to be itself, and still to be able to reach out and communicate with the others. The six pieces in the Singing Upside Down series, are extreme examples of this approach. This collection of work has no specific theme. Rather, each work prompted and influenced the next so a meandering path may be evident, particularly when it comes to palette and repeating motifs. 🎼💭In Sounds of Memory, I explore that wordless zone where words do not write poems and not all titles are made of words. This body of work is the continuation of my fascination with memory. To me, sculpture is not just a means of communication or self-expression but rather a process of discovery and uncovering. Memory has been an enduring topic among visual artists because it exists at the crossroads of perception and imagination. There is a transition, a still space between memory and expectation where creativity lives, and when we listen we can hear change happening. #pdxartist #assemblagesculpture #abstractpaintings #portlandartscene artandaboutpdx

Don’t Be Clever, Be True: Late Works by David Eckard, Curated by Daniel Duford 🗓️May 7 - June 27, 2026 📍PNCA - 511 NW Broadway, Portland, OR 97209 ✨Opening reception: First Thursday, May 7, 5-8 pm 🌀Public reception: Thursday, June 4, 5-8 pm ⏳Monday - Saturday, 10 am - 4 pm This memorial exhibition honors the artistic achievement and community impact of David Eckard, an artist and educator who touched the lives of generations of students, having served as Associate Professor and Head of the Sculpture Department of PNCA from 2000-2025. This title of the exhibition, Don’t Be Clever, Be True, is taken from a note written on the wall of David’s studios in the last years before his death. While Eckard was primarily known for sculpture and performance, works in the exhibition include paintings and 2D constructions completed in the last decade of his life. These works, many never publicly shown, capture the technical prowess, poetic wit, and beautiful strangeness indicative of Eckard’s work. For more information and programming details, please visit PNCA’s Events Calendar 📆

A Solace of Objects - a community collection of what is kept after loss - Curated and produced by Stephanie Sheldon 📍Happy Anyway 3125 SE Belmont 🗓️ April 10- May 10, 2026 ⏳ Hours: Friday, Saturday, Monday 12-5 and Sunday 12-4 🎟️Free to the public In 2023, I created an exhibit of everyday items called “Where Did You Go?”. It was largely about how I felt my mom’s absence most acutely in objects, as it was impossible for me to ignore the shift in their significance after her death. A Solace of Objects was born from the conversations with the people who saw that show and the stories they shared with me about the things they’ve held onto. I wanted to offer a space where others’ sentimental objects could be shared publicly and in a way that allows them to be given the reverence I believe they deserve. It’s no small thing to hold the story of someone who has died, to be a physical thread to a life lost—yet these small objects do just that. My work, whether it’s creative (like this project), collaborative (like decorating and organizing), or commercial (like my retail stores), has always focused largely on physical items and the stories they hold—real or imagined—and the study of our common human behaviors around the buying, selling, keeping, collecting, storing and sorting of them. I’m fascinated by the things with which we surround ourselves - or become surrounded by. I’m endlessly curious about how these items comfort and burden us in equal measure. @wearehappyanyway funded in part by a grant from Regional Arts & Culture Council and the Office of Arts & Culture. @regionalarts @pdxartsculture #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #grief #memory

Silence and Slow Time: Recent Paintings by Ellen Blazich and Kayla Marie Carlson, curated by Rose Lewis 📍 Souvenir, 1233 NE Alberta St. 🗓️ May 1-30, 2026 ⏳ Thursday – Saturday, 12-5pm 🎟️Free to the public In her discussion of John Keats’ famously ekphrastic Ode on a Grecian Urn, the poet Camille Guthrie asks “What happens when we gaze at a work of art? Does it speak to us through time, or are its silence and distance incomprehensible?” Keats raises more questions than he answers about the proper approach to truth and beauty, and his own work may be regarded as incomprehensible by contemporary readers, but the experience he captures, the profound awe of human creativity, is a timeless one. This exhibition features work by painters conjuring this timeless sense, their practice rooted in historical knowledge that speaks to our present time. Ellen Blazich approaches her materials with experimental rigor. Drawing on her background in ceramics, mixing glazes from raw minerals, she completes her palette with homemade paints and oilsticks, crafted using her own variations on age-old technique. Kayla Marie Carlson’s heroic paintings capture the vast, historic sweep of classical mythology in tender, attentive detail. Her expressive landscapes are anchored by stoic depictions of Greek sculpture, their calm, watchful presence regarding the contemporary world with detachment. Artmaking is, at its best, a continuous learning experience, finding new ways to relate to one’s materials, practice, artistic peers, and sources of inspiration. Visitors may find some inspiration of their own in the curated selection of books the artists have placed in the gallery. @ellenblazich @kaylamariecarlson @souvenirartspdx #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #contemporarypainting

First off thanks to everyone who came out for our screening with @pam_cut 🩷🫶🏼💚truly a magical evening getting to watch Bande à part with all of you! Such a dream to partner with PAM CUT and their team. We loved creating a new neighborhood Art & Culture guide for some of our favorite places on Division Street ✨ #artandaboutpdx #pamcut #divisionstreet #scavengerhunt #artandcultureguide

PDX <> LAX 📍Purple Door Gallery, 3557 SE Division St. 🗓️ May 1 – 31, 2026 PDX <> LAX,is a collaborative illustration exhibition featuring works by Zachary Rau and Chris Sasaki. Zachary Rau is a Portland-based illustrator and educator whose work serves as an intimate record of his surroundings, often attuned to the quiet moments that shape daily life. Chris Sasaki is a California-based animation director, writer, and illustrator who has spent the past several years developing an equally intimate documentation of the lives and landscapes of Los Angeles. Brought together through friendship and mutual inspiration, Rau and Sasaki bring distinct visual languages to a shared impulse: to observe, document, and honor the intimate and mundane moments of the people and places they call home. PDX <> LAX becomes a visual conversation between two friends—an exchange of portraiture, place, memory, and attention.

Amy Bay at Nationale 🌼🌹🍃 up until May 15 ~ loved all thr sneaky details like the leaf on the edge of the first painting (probably our favorite) and the soft buttery #monographs #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #amybay #floral

Blue Sky 2005 - 2015: The Fourth Decade 📍Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Ave., Portland ⏳Hours: Wed-Sat, 12-5 p.m. 🗓️ May 7 - 30, 2026 ✨Opening reception: First Thursday, May 7, 5-9 pm 🎟️ Free to the public Blue Sky is continuing to celebrate our 50 year history with Blue Sky 2005 - 2015: The Fourth Decade. This exhibition highlights photographs by artists who presented at the gallery between 2005 and 2015 as well as recent work from these same artists. All prints (except as noted) are priced at $200 each and are on sale for a limited time. Proceeds go towards sustaining Blue Sky’s programming for the next generation. ✨Image: Raina Matar #artandaboutpdx #blueskygallery #portlandartscene #contemporaryphotography

Kevin Kadar, Recent Landscapes and Seascapes - A memorial survey exhibition 📍 Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis St 🗓️ May 6-30, 2026 ✨Special commemoration honoring Kevin’s life: Wed May 6, 6pm & Opening reception First Thursday, May 7, 5-8pm ⏳ Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11 -5:30 🎟️Free to the public! In 2025 Kevin Kadar and I began planning this exhibit and we intended to focus on his recent, fantastic “Bandiagara Escarpment” series. He proposed the title “New Landscapes and Seascapes.” The paintings were inspired by the stunning region located in the Dogon country of Mali, West Africa. The massive escarpment cliffs rise about 1,600 ft, are approximately 90 miles long and have immeasurable cultural significance; they are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Kevin showed me about two dozen works, and I can’t imagine pinning any of them to only one particular scene, they are a culmination of everything he had experienced in his 70 years. This was the most exuberant and brilliant painting series I’d ever seen him create! His colors and gestures were so full of life, joy and optimism. Kevin was very happy with this new work and eager to keep exploring new territory. Then tragedy struck, Kevin passed away at the end of 2025 after a brief medical battle. This memorial retrospective exhibit will span many years- from a large self portrait Kadar made upon his college graduation in 1976, The Vacuum World paintings, Envelope paintings, figure studies, en plein aire paintings made during travel across Europe and USA, and his most recent paintings. KEVIN KADAR. 1955 to 2025 #portlandartscene #artandaboutpdx #contemporarypainting #kevinkader #butterflies

The Poet’s Lips, Derek Franklin 📍Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., Portland ⏳Hours: Tues-Sat, 10:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. 🗓️ Date: May 6 - 30, 2026 ✨Opening reception: First Thursday: May 7, 5:30-7:30 pm 🎟️ Free to the public “What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music. His fate is like that of those unfortunates who were slowly tortured by a gentle fire in Philaris’s bull; their cries could not reach the tyrant’s ears to cause him dismay, to him they sounded like sweet music. And people flock around the poet and say: ‘Sing again soon’–that is ‘May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.’” -Søren Kierkegaard New paintings and sculptures by Derek Franklin in our second gallery. Continuing his previous investigations into the visual presentation systems of information and ideas, Franklin has moved away from the darker palette of shadows and turned his focus to the light of too much seeing—overexposure, the startled eye, memory caught in a spotlight mid-formation that then dissipates. The paintings are awash in light, wavering between emergence and erasure, where recognition begins to deliquesce at its edges. Franklin’s new works offer and then withhold gratification at different distances, slowing down and rendering uncertain the act of looking. Franklin writes, “I hope to make paintings that are never fully resolute—paintings you can never quite be completely at home with when you are standing in front of them.” The paintings hold oppositions instead of resolving them, seeking potential in the ambiguity between oscillating poles: specificity and the pedestrian, hope and anguish, memory and its forgetting. They sustain attention toward the friction between everyday imagery and the fantasy that an image has the possibility of bearing memory. #DerekFranklin #ElizabethLeachGallery #portlandartscene #artandaboutpdx #contemporarypainting

Art x Hand: 60 Years of Arts at Menucha 📍Artspace Gallery, 380 A Avenue, Suite A, Lake Oswego 🗓️ May 15 — July 17, 2026 ⏳Tuesday–Friday from 10am–5pm ✨Opening reception: Friday, May 15 5:30–7:30pm. Several artists will be in attendance, as will multiple camp participants. This special art exhibit celebrates Creative Arts Community’s 60 years of programming, and features works by CAC instructors, coordinators, and board members spanning those past six decades. Featured artists include Barbara Black, Susie Cowan, Yuji Hiratsuka, Junko Iijima, Mary Josephson, Michael Knutson, Cynthia Lahti, Dennis Meiners, Paul Missal, Sarah Wolf Newlands, Dale Rawls, Lettie Jane Rennekamp, Sandy Roumagoux, Christopher Shotola-Hardt, Melinda Thorsnes, Diane Trapp, Phyllis Trowbridge, and Rick True. Since 1966, the Creative Arts Community has provided unique residential workshops at the Menucha Retreat Center in Corbett, Oregon. In two separate, one-week sessions in August, CAC offer hands-on explorative workshops with a focus on a variety of arts disciplines including painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, jewelry-making, textiles, creative writing, and more. Classes are taught by established artists and craftspeople from all over the Pacific Northwest, Portland specifically. This exhibit celebrates 60 years of inclusionary teaching and sharing. ✨Image shown: Cynthia Lahti, “White Flowers”, 2025, drawing, collage, altered books and sculpture, 12” x 9” #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene

an imagined place (here and now) by Satpreet Kahlon at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. On view until May 23, 2026. Transported to another world in this poignant and personal installation by Kahlon. Also — there is a soundtrack by the artist that plays in the space, that accompanies the work so well. (*unfortunately our videos do not do a good job in capturing it so we had to omit— go see the show!.) ✨

Kim Gronquist: Intimate Monads at SE Cooper Contemporary. On View through June 6. @kimberly_gronquist @secoopercontemporary Beautiful series of intimate ceramic sculptures that look like prehistoric succulents, underwater worlds, honeycombs, vaginas, the inner workings of flowers... The archway outside of the gallery made in collaboration with floral deisnger @colibripdx transports you to view sculptures layered in creamy, opalescent shiny gleaming glazes. #artandaboutpdx #contemporaryceramics #porcelain #sculpture #kimgronquist