The Latest

Breathing in the Dark, Christine Laquet 📍after/time collective, 735 SW 9th #110, Portland ⏳Hours: Tues & Thurs, 6-8 p.m. + Sat, 12-5 p.m. 🗓️March 6-29, 2026 ✨Opening reception: First Friday, March 6, 5-8 pm 🎟️ Free to the public (Additional Artist-led Workshops during the month of March to be announced) The exhibition explores forms of terrestrial and aquatic life that persist beyond the visible field. Plants, animals, or bacteria that remain active and close at hand, having influence while escaping ordinary perception. Some are revealed only under altered/augmented conditions of observation, such as deep darkness and underwater immersion, or thermal imaging exposing hidden nocturnal movement. Through films, photographs, video installations, and paintings, the works propose perceptual shifts such as generating ambiguous, phantom-like images that exist only through the active convergence of the viewer’s gaze. Transformation and disappearance unfold as living, tangible processes, revealing time as a quiet, ongoing force rather than a fixed representation. Endeavoring to make large timescales like that of the looming climate crisis more accessible, the artist reworks our impression of the passage of time. This is approached through the use of protocols - calculations to create correlations between slow drips and rising water, or gradual dissolution and physical disappearance. Over the course of the exhibition this will be enacted in the stretching or compressing of durations, inviting renewed attention and a different point of view towards the living world. Christine Laquet (b. 1975, France) lives and works in Nantes. Her interdisciplinary practice spans installation, performance, film, and painting, and unfolds at the intersection of environmental inquiry, speculative research, and embodied experience. She creates immersive situations in which living and non-living entities (animals, plants, minerals, and micro-organisms) are approached as active agents within shared environments. #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #scienceandart

Jonathan Canady, “Carry On” 📍 Souvenir, 1233 NE Alberta St., Portland 🗓️ March 7- 28, 2026 ✨Opening reception: March 7, from 5-8pm ⏳ Hours: Thursday-Saturday Noon-5pm 🎟️Free to the public! Portland artist Jonathan Canady shows a selection of recent original drawings, entitled “Carry On”. All proceeds benefit the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition. Every day we edge towards the end of everything positive the human race has done. The figures in these drawings represent variations and abstractions of us. They are transparent members of the human race navigating the world in what time they have left. These beings are living in the “now what?” After spending years making work about human psychology, our mistakes and tragedy, then the end of the world itself, this is where I have been led. This is my own answer to “now what?” I like to think that the figures I create are successfully enduring the absurdity of our current reality. -Jonathan Canady Well known in the experimental music underground, Jonathan Canady (b. 1972 in Denver, Colorado) began to focus his creative efforts on visual art in 2007. He has been living in Portland, Oregon since 2014. Canady’s work has been exhibited in The United States and Europe, and has been featured in multiple print publications. His “Quaranzine” collaboration with Marc Fischer / Public Collectors is currently on display as part of Collection in Conversation with Pablo Helguera at The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Canady’s work has ranged from drawing and oil painting, to video art and live sound performances. In recent years his focus has been on drawing, and the publication of numerous artists’ books. The list of publications includes a collaboration with John Duncan titled “Show Your Love.” @souvenirartspdx @vergeoflight #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #benefitshow @pirc_oregon

Seeing the What: a Pop-Up Art Exhibition by The Lobby @ The Writers’ Block 📍The Writer’s Block, 818 NW Flanders St., Portland ⏳ Hours: Mon-Fri 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. or by appt 🗓️ March 5 - May 23, 2026. ✨Opening reception: First Thursday, 5-8 pm in March, April & May After a two month hiatus, we’re excited to be back to our regular First Thursday programming AND we’re kicking off 2026 with a special exhibition! The Writers’ Block has partnered with The Lobby to present a three-month group show featuring nationally recognized contemporary artists. 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, 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. This partnership reflects The Lobby’s ongoing mission to make significant contemporary art accessible to the Portland community, while also highlighting The Writers’ Block’s vibrant commitment to art and creativity, multidisciplinary programming, participation in First Thursdays, and active role within Portland’s cultural landscape. #thewritersblockpdx #thelobby #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscen

Artist Lecture: Sama Alshaibi 🗓️⏱️Tuesday March 3 6-7:30 pm 📍Pacific Northwest College of Art, In the first-floor Mediatheque, 511 NW Broadway 🌟Free & Open to the Public! RSVP for free on Eventbrite 📌This lecture will be both livestreamed and in person. Sama Alshaibi’s image-based practice emerges from aftermath, shaped by fragmentation and dispossession as lived conditions of political conflict and forced migration. Working with images, data, fieldwork, and archives, she examines the ways large systems enter lived form—and how place, memory and ideology are felt, staged and contested. Recent projects position Baghdad, Iraq as a palimpsest, where rapid modernization, conflict, and survival compress multiple temporalities into the same sites. In her work, return exposes a misalignment between memory and material reality, leaving an untended city continually improvised and reassembled, where absence carries weight and even the immaterial leaves residue. Alongside this inquiry, Alshaibi often works with her own body as site and subject, using indeterminacy as method; powerful feminized representations resist visual legacies that have used the Arab female body as a pretext for subjection. Her practice also extends to the environment, treating social, built, and natural systems as interlinked sites shaped by extraction and scarcity, where speculative gestures imagine alternative orders of relation, use, and survival. Her work has been widely exhibited, including in the 55th Venice Biennale, the 13th Cairo International Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Crystal Bridges Museum of Art (State of the Art 2020), and the Barjeel Foundation (UAE). @sama_alshaibi #artisttalk #collage #installation #portraiture

Raise a glass 𝘢𝘯𝘥 a paddle at @oregoncontemporary and @thirdanglenewmusic 𝙜𝙖𝙡𝙖 / 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙮 / 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 🌟TICKETS ON SALE 🗓️ March 7⁠ 🕗️ 7:00–10:00pm⁠ ⁠ Don’t miss this evening of art, performance, bites, and celebration.⁠ This is one of our favorite events to purchase art at! You can support the arts in our beloved city in a real and tangible way! Walk away with artwork and schmooze! Perfect for young and established collectors— don’t miss your chance to show up! ⁠ Hosted by the one-and-only Pepper Pepper, featuring performances by Methods Body, Machado Mijiga, and Daniel Reyes Llinás.⁠ @thepepperpepper @methodsbody @machadomijiga danielreyesllinas_ @mertibadgeco ⁠ Drinks served by Merit Badge, and celebrate with our community in a space designed for connection, creativity, and joy.⁠ ⁠ Plus 50/50 Art Sale will be on view, and available for purchase, with 50% of all proceeds going directly to the artists. Participating artists lineup dropping soon!⁠ Keep an eye out for that! ⁠ #artgala #portlandartscene #celebrate #buyart

Zac Banik: I’m Just Happy to Be Here 📍Gallery 114 🗓️March 5 – 28, 2026 ✨Opening Reception: First Thursday, March 5, 5 – 8 pm I’m Just Happy to Be Here celebrates Banik’s multimedia work, which incorporates found objects, traditional art materials, two-dimensional works, sculpture and a sound/video installation. Banik says that his show “will feature a collection of artifacts, inventions and installations that ask questions about life, death, rebirth and seeing the world from an unfamiliar vantage point.” #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #gallery114

A Land That Remembers, by Erinn Kathryn + M. Earl Williams 📍Carnation Contemporary, 8371 N Interstate Ave #3, Portland 🗓️ March 7- 29, 2026 ⏳ Hours: Sat-Sun 12-5 p.m. ✨ Opening reception: Saturday, March 7th, 5–8 PM A Land That Remembers assembles two distinct approaches to how landscapes endure over time. Erinn Kathryn engages material, labor, and deep temporal presence while M. Earl Williams centers relational sovereignty and continuity through story, image, and technology. Both practices witness the persistence of land beyond the constraints imposed by colonial systems, and their inherent ability to hold, transform, and endure. @carnationcontemporary @erinnkathryn @m_earl_williams #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #artistrungallery

It’s the last week to see D.E. May, Notes, Notes, Notes 📍PDX Contemporary Art @pdxcontemporaryart 🗓️Feb 4-28, 2026 D.E. May was a natural archivist—attentively cataloguing materials and documenting information. He was known to carry memo pads of 3” x 5” paper to record notes, ideas, and drawings. Some were plans for future artwork, referential sketches, or illustrated studies. Others contained bits of personal research, artistic inspirations, lists, quotes, movie references, games of hangman, playlists, and musings. Sometimes made in his studio, sometimes made at the counter of the local bar—the varied essence of these quickly-made works is a look into the mind and practice of the artist. Notes, Notes, Notes features a selection of the artist’s jottings. During the duration of the exhibition, we invite visitors to create their own notes and drawings to hang on the wall, which can be collected at the end of the show. We are also thrilled to share the retrospective, D. E. May: Postcards from Islandsalem, curated by Linda Tesner, is now on view through March 21, 2026 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. The exhibition will be accompanied by lecture, exhibition walkthroughs, panel discussion, and a full color, 208-page book, The Art of D. E. May. D.E. May (1952-2019) spent his life in Salem, Oregon.

New on the blog - Letter from the Editor (@ashxgifford) about the @lumberroompdx shifting its space and purpose in the Portland art scene. Thank you @millermeigs @libby_pmoma — so many wonderful memories and experiences taking in the art and events showcased there over the past decade we’ve been visiting, xoxo. “Earlier this month, the lumber room announced that it will sunset its regular exhibition schedule and instead reimagine its future as an art space. A pause, a moment, a new chapter. Thank you to the lumber room, to Sarah, Libby, and all the staff and artists for many years of incredible programming, for sharing the collection, and for putting on some of the most memorable openings and events—readings, performances—in one of the most beautiful spaces in the city. I have many lumber room memories. The first show I saw there was With a Clear Mind, You Can Move With the Truth in 2015. It might’ve been the first time I saw heavy hitters like Agnes Martin and Sol Lewitt presented outside a museum and alongside more contemporary artists. I always appreciated how the works on view (often, and mostly, pulled from Sarah Miller Meigs’ collection) introduced me to new artists—regional, national, and international. Discovering artists in that space felt natural and effortless.” ✨More on the blog: https://artandaboutpdx.com/blog/letter-from-the-editor-goodbye-for-now-lumber-room✨ #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #artnews #lumberroom

We had so much fun at @sunflowersake FUYU FEST this year - celebrating sake, flavor and culture 🍶🌟 and a special set by @patriciawolf_music accompanied by a sake pairing. #portlandartandculture #sake #sakefestival #fuyufest japaneseculture

Memory Palace, Marsha Mack 📍Paragon Arts Gallery, 815 N. Killingsworth St., Portland 🗓️ Date: March 6 - April 11, 2026 ✨ Opening reception: Friday, March 6 from, 5-8 pm ⏳ Hours: Wed-Fri 12-7 pm , Sat 12-5 pm 🎟️The gallery and all events are free and open to the public 🍬Candy Tasting Workshops: 🍭Friday, March 6 from, 5-8 pm & 🍭Saturday, April 4th, 2026, from 12-3 pm Drawing parallels between mixed-race identity and formative memories in Asian grocery stores, Marsha Mack’s Memory Palace is a solo exhibition of ceramic sculpture, installation, and imported candies. Imagined as a surreal retail environment where aisles hold handbuilt ceramics and found object alongside the artist’s favorite childhood candies, Mack creates mixed-media snapshots capturing moments and ideas tracing back to the formation of her Vietnamese American biracial identity - one that is sentimental, at times problematic, and actively evolving. Arranged in altar-like tableaus on commercial gondola shelving, memory and fantasy blend, revealing an underlying logic where the potential for curiosity, delight, and personal mythology is present throughout. Memory Palace was made possible through support from RACC and the Office of Arts & Culture. @regionalarts #portlandartscene #candy #ceramics #artandaboutpdx #paragonart

At the opening reception of Kristen Diederich “How I Want You Green” at the iconic Downtown Stumptown location. 💚 @kdiederichstudio is the recipient of the Stumptown Coffee Roasters Artist Fellowship grant. #portlandartscene #contemporarypainting #abstractartwork

We cannot think of a better way to spend an evening ✨ Sleeping Beauty with the Oregon Ballet Theatre @oregon.ballet.theatre 🩰💭 Tickets available now for the show tomorrow night! Opening night was so much fun! Can’t wait to see more of their upcoming showcases including Princess and the Pea 🫛 and more. #oregonballettheatre #sleepingbeauty #nightattheballet

🎉 𝙜𝙖𝙡𝙖 / 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙮 / 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 @oregoncontemporary and @thirdanglenewmusic 🌟TICKETS NOW ON SALE 🌟 ⁠ 🗓️ March 7⁠ 🕗️ 7:00–10:00pm⁠ 🎟️Ticket link in bio⁠ ⁠ Oregon Contemporary and Third Angle come together for an evening of art, performance, bites, and celebration.⁠ ⁠ Join us for a vibrant gathering hosted by the one-and-only Pepper Pepper, featuring performances by Methods Body, Machado Mijiga, and Daniel Reyes Llinás.⁠ ⁠ Enjoy delicious bites by Portland favorites, sip on drinks served by Merit Badge, and celebrate with our community in a space designed for connection, creativity, and joy.⁠ ⁠ The 50/50 Art Sale will be on view, and available for purchase, with 50% of all proceeds going directly to the artists. Participating artists lineup dropping soon!⁠ ⁠ @thepepperpepper @methodsbody @machadomijiga danielreyesllinas_ @mertibadgeco

Thinking Through Mud: Arrangements of Clay + Ikebana Co-curated by Morgan Ritter & Jeffry Mitchell @raisin_consciousness @jeffrymitchell 🏺Featuring work by James Alby, Lisa Conway, Marjorie Dial, Nick Norman, Ben Killen Rosenberg, Ben Skiba and ahuva s. zaslavsky with Renka 蓮華) Ikebana @alby_there4u @lisaconwayceramics @marjoriedial @nicknow99 @flipbunny @benskiba @ahuvasz 📍Artspace, 380 A Avenue in Lake Oswego @artscounciloflakeoswego 🌟Opening reception February 20, 5:30-7:30 pm 🗓️February 20-April 10, 2026 ⏳Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m The artists in this group exhibition are all united by a shared way of thinking through their hands and arriving at unexpected, visceral work. ✋🏽🪨🍃 Ripe with aliveness, the artworks evoke the earth itself, the streets layered upon the mud, and the overall residue of life carried across these surfaces. Within their craft, skill is not performed. Instead, the work demonstrates care and curiosity for the process of making. Clay’s ubiquity underscores its democratic potential: a material that is not scarce, yet capable of extraordinary meaning and transformation. Mostly hand-built ceramic sculptures participate in a visual conversation with ikebana about control and surprise. Portland-based Renka (蓮華) Ikebana, led by Amy RM Stahl, follows the unconstrained ethos of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana. Founded in 1927 by Sofu Teshigahara, Sogetsu believes that anyone can arrange anywhere, with any material. Relying on assemblages of unlikely materials and forms, the sculptures all exist between becoming and collapse. 1) Ben Skiba, A poet listens from within the shell their shadow forms, Ceramic, Tape, Wood, Canvas, Paint, 13 x 5 x 63 in, 2017. #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #contemporaryceramics

sense of place 📍Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., Portland 🗓️ March 5 - April 30, 2026 ✨Opening reception: March 5, 5:30 - 7:30 pm ⏳Hours: Tues-Sat, 10:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. 🎟️ Free to the public group exhibition featuring work by 17 artists, some new to the gallery and others who first exhibited their work here in the gallery’s early years. As one of the major group exhibitions curated as part of the gallery’s 45th Anniversary year programming, sense of place explores the many meanings of “place,” from specific locations to larger conceptual ideas of what makes a “place,” and the influence of people and place on one another. Across decades and media, the artists in sense of place use depictions of places, from the American landscape, interiors, invented places, and political situations to reflect on where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. Ray Anthony Barrett Ed Bereal Christine Bourdette Kavin Buck Shannon Ebner Derek Franklin Richard Gruetter Stephen Hayes Malia Jensen Lee Kelly Justine Kurland Henk Pander Ryan Pierce Christopher Rauschenberg Meghann Riepenhoff Jay Stern Amanda Wojick #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #elizabethleachgallery

Arlene Schnitzer Visual Arts Prize (2025) Exhibition 📍Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU, 1855 SW Broadway ⏳Hours: Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. & Thurs 11 a.m. -7 p.m. 🗓️ February 24 to April 25, 2026 ✨Opening reception: Tuesday February 24, 5-7pm 🎟️ Free to the public The Harold & Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation created the Arlene Schnitzer Visual Arts Prizes in 2013 to help raise awareness of the quality of art education at PSU and to honor the late Arlene Schnitzer, who was a devoted and inspired leader of art and culture in Portland. Three awards are given to students enrolled in programs in the Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design. This year, Briana Cieri‬‭ (BFA in Graphic Design, ‘25), Ame Morrison (BFA in Art Practice, Minor in Film Studies‬‭ (with Honors), ‘25), and Savannah Noel‬‭ (BFA in Art Practice, ‘25) were awarded the prestigious prizes. 1. Briana Cieri, The Wall of Humanity, 2026, Risograph printed with black ink, 168 11 x 17 in posters 2. Ame Morrison, Altar to a More Peaceful Government, 2026 3. Savannah Noel, Falling Asleep on the Couch: Payden’s Bloody Knee, 2025, Drytac, 6 x 9 in. 4. Savannah Noel, Falling Asleep on the Couch: A Dead Bird Overlooking the Ocean, 2025, Drytac, 6 x 9 in. #portlandartscene #artandaboutpdx #bfa

Getting into the layers, layers, layers, and being a sucker for crystals in a new mini interview with @chris_lael_larson 🌟 There is a dimensionality and richness in Chris Lael Larson’s installations he creates in his studio, that he then photographs, and prints. Seeing the three-dimensional installations in person, noticing firsthand how precarious their elements are: a fishing line tethered to a piece of paper, cardboard propping up a cutover from an old painting, a scrap of cellophane or lichen delicately balancing on the edge of a crystal. These sculptural manipulations of material to create an image are impermanent, and one of the reasons Larson hasn’t tried to create the installations for an exhibition, even though it's one of the top questions he gets from people. The reflectiveness - crystals, prisms, mirrors – which both of us share we are suckers for, pull you in. Their illumination is captivating and a welcomed entry point to his graphics, paintings, and staged imagery he uses that is opaque, color forward. He alluded that some of these elements that bring his photographed installation to life will be in his upcoming show, Lost Lake, at @carnationcontemporary (on view from February 7 - March 1, 2026). 💎 Artwork @chris_lael_larson 🔏🎞️ Intro + film photos by @ashxgifford 🔗Read more online 🌀 artandaboutpdx.com/blog/mini-interview-chris-lael-larson #artandaboutpdx #artistinterview #chrislaelarson #artiststudio #portlandartscene

@house_of_art_and_craft_pdx offers some incredibly fun workshops in their SE studio 🌟 Follow along as we take our 1st (and certainly not last) #enameling class where we decorated a #switchplate 💡 Rainen @rainenknecht leads this class with love and humor and her experience, enthusiasm and expertise is felt throughout. Sometimes taking workshops can be a little scary/overwhelming/fill-in-the-blank but not this one! There are no mistakes just fun, care, and the magic of enameling. #portlandartscene #artandaboutpdx #houseofartandcraft

Artist lecture with Emily Counts @emilyraecounts with @ccac_pnca at PNCA 🌟 Wednesday, February 18 at 6 PM ⚡️This lecture is free & open to the public (RSVP on Eventbrite encouraged) Emily Counts was born in Seattle, WA and currently lives and works in Tacoma, WA. She creates ceramic and mixed-media sculptures that engage with craft traditions while exploring femininity, matriarchal identity, memory, and nature. This work is personal but ultimately suggests open-ended narratives, creating space for the viewer’s own stories and meaning. Electricity and illumination are often incorporated into ceramic pieces as she aims to merge nostalgia and historical aesthetics with a futuristic sensibility. Counts received her BFA from the California College of the Arts and studied at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, Germany. Her work has been exhibited in institutions including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Torrance Art Museum in California, Oregon Contemporary in Portland, and in Washington at the Museum of Museums, the Bellevue Arts Museum, and the Museum of Northwest Art. She has received grants from Artist Trust, The Ford Family Foundation, the Oregon Arts Commission, and the Regional Arts & Culture Council. She was an artist in residence at Raid Projects in Los Angeles, Plane Space in New York, and at the Varda Artists Residency Program in Sausalito, CA. Counts has works in the collection of the Port of Seattle. She is currently represented in Oregon by Nationale @nationale and in Washington by studio e gallery @studioegallery #artandaboutpdx #portlandartscene #artisttalk #pnca #emilycounts