News

PDX CONTEMPORARY ART is looking forward to hosting the Big Yard Foundation’s annual art fundraiser, Big Yard Studio: Creators.

Big Yard Foundation is a Portland-based non-profit founded in 2018 to inspire young people to dream big and support them in the pursuit of those dreams. Big Yard provides opportunities for youth to explore creativity, build skills, and connect with mentors through access to sport, education, and the arts. Big Yard Studio is their annual art fundraiser celebrating community and artists.

This year’s Big Yard Studio, Creators, is an art gallery-style show featuring work made during an 8-week workshop designed to build creative skills. Their creative journeys will be featured through the debut of original work across film, storytelling, and design, along with a short documentary capturing the workshop experience and process behind the work.

The event offers a live look at what happens when young people are given the tools, space, and support to bring their ideas to life.
 
Join us for the 6th annual Big Yard Studio, highlighting the first cohort of Big Yard Creators on Friday, May 29, from 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm! 

All ticket and artwork sales benefit Big Yard Foundation.

Big Yard Studio: Creators
Friday, May 29th, 2026
7:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Buy your ticket to the event HERE

Susie J. Lee's video portraits Atom and Max were recently acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

Tune into KBOO radio this morning Tuesday, May 12, from 11:30 - 12:30 for an interview with Jenene Nagy on occasion of her exhibition "when once our shadows touched, moving gently on this wide path."

https://www.kboo.fm/media/133499-jenene-nagy

“On Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at 11:30 a.m., Joseph Gallivan interviews painter Jenene Nagy about her new painting show at PDX Contemporary Art in northwest Portland.
 
Nagy talks about her blue and white gouache paintings, which include sparkly mica and thousands of pencil marks which she makes for up to 10 hours a day as part of her meditative practice. She also talks about the concept of sharing breath with diverse neighbors, framing and the idea of small actions being able to change the world.”

If you miss it this morning, the program will be made available online tomorrow.

We have updated our hours for summer.

Open Tuesday - Saturday from 10 AM - 5 PM, or by appointment

Nathan William Lambdin will be in the gallery Saturday, April 18, from 1-3 pm. Please stop by to see say hello and walk-through his show, Inhabitations with the artist.

Nathan will be available to discuss more about his process & approach to this body of work.

Please join artist Marie Watt at this free and open to the public printmaking event at the Oregon State Capitol!

Experiment, play, and learn how to make pressure prints with Marie Watt and professional printmakers! Together, we’ll create personal prints and optionally contribute to a future community-generated artwork for the art collections of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and the Oregon State Capitol. If you would like to donate your plate (or a print), it will be quilted together with other prints to make a larger composition that, like democracy, will explore the relationship between part and whole, individual and community, call and response.

Participants will be able to take home their prints as well as a reciprocal gift of a limited edition print created by Marie Watt. 

* Take your print home the same day
* No experience necessary
* All ages welcome
* Come and go as you wish
* Bring a friend and invite others!

This project is a collaboration with Mullowney Printing and is made possible by Oregon’s Percent for Art in Public Places Program, managed by the Oregon Arts Commission. 

Space is limited! Please click HERE to RSVP.

James Lavadour's work is included in Stretching the Canvas: Ten Decades of Native Painting on view May 15 through Spring 2027 at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC.

"Stretching the Canvas: Ten Decades of Native Painting explores how Native artists challenged perceptions of what constituted art and what Native art could and should look like. Featuring more than 50 works by 46 artists, this exhibition tells the story of how American Indian art expanded after World War I and how Native painters began to advocate for themselves in a world that often ignored their talent. Artists such as Fred Kabotie, Tonita Peña, and Stephen Mopope carved out space for painting at a time when Native art was often dismissed. Later generations—including Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kay WalkingStick, Fritz Scholder, James Lavadour, Jeffrey Gibson, Dyani White Hawk, and Athena LaTocha—expanded the field even further, embracing a wide range of approaches. Over the span of ten decades, these artists and their work demonstrated the breadth, complexity, and continuing expansion of Native self-expression."

More information HERE

Tad Savinar was interviewed by Brian Libby for Oregon ArtsWatch. Read the conversation discussing his current show and his multidisciplinary career HERE.

Tad Savinar’s exhibition 2025: A Logbook Through Darkness remains on view through March 28.

D.E. May's retrospective exhibition D. E. May: Postcards from Islandsalem was reviewed in Oregon ArtsWatch.

D. E. May: Postcards from Islandsalem remains on view at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art through March 21, 2026.

Read the full review HERE

James Lavadour's traveling retrospective, now at The Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture in Spokane, WA, was reviewed in the Inlander.

Read the full review HERE