News

Congratulations to Heather Watkins!
Heather and Brenda Mallory are receiving the 2025 Bonnie Bronson Award!

The public reception will be Wednesday, May 28th at 5pm - remarks at 5:30 in Vollum Lounge, Reed College campus.

We are very excited for and proud of Heather.

https://oregoncf.org/community-impact/impact-areas/arts-and-culture/bon…

Heather Watkins;'s is one of nine artist featured in the exhibition HER FORMATION, on view February 21st—April 11th, 2025.

"The current exhibition at Artspace, HER FORMATION, exhibits the work of nine women artists whose enigmatic artworks offer visions of survival and even imaginative possibility in times of upheaval.

The artists include Marjan Anvari, Kirsten Bauer, Francesca Capone, Sally Jablonsky, Emily Katz, Frankie Krupa-Vahdani, Zhang Mao, Heather Watkins and Amanda Wojick.

Each artist makes sense of the complexity of the world through artistic acts of alteration, abstraction, and material transformation. Their bold, often brightly saturated compositions respond to limitations through a wide variety of approaches, whether limitations of their embodied experience, cultural traditions, or autocratic systems of power. The artists’ works are uncompromising in their creative power, defiant, and even playful."

For more information: https://artscouncillo.org/her-formation

We are please to announce the release of Storm Tharp's first monograph: VERS.

VERS is a lavish, 336-page, full color, case-bound book designed by Heather Watkins. The monograph includes a collection of never-before published writings by the artist, as well as an interview between Tharp and filmmaker Todd Haynes, an essay by Tokyo art consultant Chihiro Watanabe, and a preface and essay by Cooley Gallery director and curator Stephanie Snyder. VERS is published by the Cooley Gallery, Reed College, 2025, and is supported by The Ford Family Foundation, Roseburg, OR.

James Lavadour and Marie Watt are both included in Indigenous Identities: Here, Now, & Always curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation) opening February 1 at the Zimmerli Art Museum.

"This exhibition, curated by the renowned artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation), provides a provocative survey of contemporary Native American art across media. A prolific curator, Quick-to-See Smith has curated over thirty shows, including The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C (2023). Indigenous Identities features ninety living artists that represent over fifty distinct Indigenous nations and communities from across North America and includes painting, works on paper, photography, ceramics, beadwork, weaving, sculpture, installation, and video."

For more information: https://zimmerli.rutgers.edu/art/exhibition/indigenous-identities-here-…

Iván Carmona's exhibition Trozos was written about in Cliff Notes by Variable West.

You can read the full review here:
Oregon art picks from Kaya Noteboom

PADA Pop-Up Event!
A fun, casual event, open to all.

Join us this Sunday, November 17th, from 11am-5pm for the PADA Pop-Up.

The Portland Art Dealers Association pop-up will take place at Building Five at Northwest Marine Artworks and will feature work by PADA's member galleries Blackfish Gallery, Gallery 114, J. Pepin Art Gallery, Laura Vincent Design & Gallery, One Grand Gallery, PDX Contemporary Art, and Waterstone Gallery as well as a few ORVAA partners The BLACK Gallery, Blue Sky, and Ori Gallery. At 3:00 pm Brian Ferriso, director of the Portland Art Museum, will give a brief talk on PADA’s contributions to Portland’s cultural community.

PDX will have new, never been seen works by some of our artists including: small vases from Iván Carmona, watercolor and gouache paintings by Justin L’Amie, small oil on panel paintings by James Lavadour, new textile work by Kristen Miller, a herd of ceramic elephants by Jeffry Mitchell, and miniature mixed media work by Nell Warren. Also on view will be work from Marjorie Dial, Ellen George, Barbara Stafford, and Heather Watkins, among others. The event will be a wonderful opportunity to see and buy brand new, small-scale works by our represented artists.

We look forward to seeing you!

PADA Pop-Up @padaoregon
Sunday, November 17th | 11am-5pm
Building Five at Northwest Marine Artworks
2516 NW 29th Ave
Portland, OR
97210

Kristen Miller's work is featured in The Never-Ending Thread: An Embroidery Exhibition, at Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art at James Madison University.

The Never-Ending Thread
An Embroidery Exhibition
November 6-December 4, 2024
Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art at James Madison University
820 S. Main St. Harrisonburg, VA 22807

TUES - SAT, 11AM - 5 PM DURING THE ACADEMIC YEAR

For more information: https://www.jmu.edu/dukehallgallery/index.shtml

Ceramics as Fine Art — A panel discussion with Grace Kook-Anderson, Marjorie Dial, Jeffry Mitchell and Iván Carmona.

Join us for a panel between Grace Kook-Anderson, Marjorie Dial, Jeffry Mitchell and Iván Carmona on contemporary ceramics. The panel will discuss how ceramics, as an art form, have become increasingly appreciated as fine art and have become more expressive of emotions, politics and place.

Ceramics as Fine Art panel discussion
5:30-6:30 pm, Tuesday, November 12, 2024
PDX CONTEMPORARY ART
1881 NW Vaughn Street
Portland, OR 97209

The venue will be the Mt. Hood Community College's Visual Arts Theatre.
There will be a pre-talk social beginning at 5:00pm.
The Address is:
26000 SE Stark St.
Gresham, OR 97030
Parking is free and lots J and AM are closest to the Visual Arts Theatre

Ellen George and Marie Watt will both have work in The Indelible Spirit: Artists in Situ Revitalizing Old Town. Curated by Roberta Wong, the exhibition is a part of COMING HOME: Memory Activism in Historic Old Town.

Vanport Mosaic shines a national spotlight on Portland’s rich and complex history through COMING HOME: Memory Activism in Old Town, a week-long series of events dedicated to honoring and reconnecting communities with deep ties to Old Town. Known as one of the city's oldest and most culturally significant neighborhoods, Old Town has been profoundly shaped by historic racism and cultural erasure.

"COMING HOME gathers the history of OLD TOWN communities whose ancestors once lived, worked, and played here. Once an integral part of the urban landscape, the Chinese and Japanese still remain in this part of the city. Chinatown and Japantown (Nihomachi) coexisted among Native American, African Americans, Greek, Jewish, and Roma businesses and communities no longer rooted in this place.

COMING HOME honors these communities through art, remembrance and resilience. Whether contemplating the past or envisioning the future, artists often capture the intangible– the spectrum between joy and pain in our lived experiences. Their art can convey what words cannot express and bridge an understanding to what was lost, and what is needed to renew our human spirit. We are connected and invite you into the circle, COMING HOME, to reimagine our sense of place.
— Curator Roberta May Wong

As part of COMING HOME there will be an Artist Meeting on Tuesday, October 1, 2024 from 3:00 PM 5:00 PM.
Building 220
220 Northwest 2nd Avenue
Portland, OR, 97209

Join for an opportunity to engage with curator Roberta May Wong and the multidisciplinary and multicultural artists behind "The Indelible Spirit: Artists in Situ Revitalizing Old Town."

More about Meet the Artists:
https://www.vanportmosaic.org/calendar/meet-artists

More about COMING HOME:
https://www.vanportmosaic.org/coming-home-2024

Vanport Mosaic Presents: COMING HOME, Memory Activism in Old Town
September 28 - October 5, 2024