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I didn’t know how to lose myself in art. I liked what I liked, but before I cobbled together some art education from people around me, galleries felt intimidating and sometimes hostile toward people outside the know. But it’s not art’s fault that gatekeepers don’t know what they’re doing, and it shouldn’t keep you from seeing how other people see the world. It’s not so hard to get out there, in the end!
There definitely are snobs who like to watch people sweat describing “contemporary art.” But once you know what to watch for, like gallery-speak that works better as placeholder text than coherent show statements, or craft that makes you question whether the work is really finished, they’re easy to avoid and you can make your own adventure in Portland’s art world. Galleries are eager for visitors who show enthusiasm for the art on display.
In the following pages, you’ll find nine shows exhibiting work of all kinds across Portland’s neighborhoods. The artists we feature each have different priorities, using different mediums to express thoughts that turn blank spaces into rooms activated by form, function and philosophy. Artists create a vision, and gallerists sell it, conceptually and commercially. But within each of these rooms is an enthusiasm for connecting with the public, making viewers reconsider what they know or don’t know through paint, clay and fabric.
Lucinda Parker discusses her latest show, an homage to her late husband called Good Grief, and how it shows amid restoration work after a fire near Russo Lee Gallery. Jeremy Okai Davis previews the inspirations for from the stage, a calling…, his next historical research-based portrait exhibition at Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Orquidia Violeta toured her sculptural textile show Chalecos Protector at after/time collective gallery. And we highlighted upcoming must-see stops on “The Cultural Corridor & Beyond: Portland’s Art Map,” a new citywide gallery map from the Oregon Alliance for the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
There are many ways to immerse yourself in a work of art. You can lose yourself in the artist’s biography, or their craft’s precision and flaws, or zero in on how their work makes you feel and how it relates to you. They’re all valid ways to see art, but if you take one thing from this guide, I hope it’s this entreaty: Get out there and see what’s coming for Portland’s art world. —Andrew Jankowski, Assistant Arts & Culture Editor
