News

Marie Watt's work is included in Fabricated Imaginaries: Crafting Art, now on view at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltman, MA.

"Fabricated Imaginaries presents artworks that occupy a liminal space where art intertwines with craft traditions, design, and unconventional modes of creativity. The works assembled in the show, primarily drawn from the museum’s permanent collection,  reflect diverse global perspectives but share commonalities: they challenge “fine arts” norms and enhance our understanding of the versatility, possibilities, and potential materiality of visual expression.

The metaphor of weaving—interlacing weft and warp—is central to the show, relating to the artworks as well as the artists' experiences and identities. Many of the artists identify with more than one culture and espouse multiple sites of belonging. And so, their creative expressions embody an intricate blend of heritage and modernity, offering powerful commentary on cultural hybridity, hyphenated identity markers, and innovative artistic amalgamations."

Fabricated Imaginaries: Crafting Art
August 20, 2025 - May 31, 2026
Rose Art Museum
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453

For more information: https://www.brandeis.edu/rose/exhibitions/2025/fabricated-imaginaries.html

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

The Big Yard Foundation is a Portland-based non-profit founded in 2018 to promote empowerment of historically marginalized communities through literacy, creativity, and physical wellness. Big Yard Studio is an annual art fundraiser that celebrates community and artists.

This year’s Big Yard Studio, The Academy, explores the deep connections between the worlds of athletics and creativity.  Both sports and art have the unique ability to foster connections among people—whether it's the camaraderie of teammates or the community formed around shared cultural experiences. The exhibition reflects on these shared human bonds, emphasizing how both art and athletics offer pathways to understanding, empathy, and collaboration.

Join us for the annual Big Yard Studio art show fundraiser on Friday, August 29, from 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm.

The show will be on view in the gallery through Saturday, September 6th. 
 

Bean Finneran's work will be featured in More Clay: The Power of Repetition, at the Academy Art Museum, September 4, 2025 - February 1, 2026

"Transcending the structural limitations of clay and abandoning the material’s traditional association with function, the seven featured artists build powerful ceramic sculptures through accumulation, repetition, and innovative feats of construction. The exhibition will also feature a community-based ceramic installation inspired by the English studio potter Edmund deWaal and organized by Academy instructor Loretta Lowman. Despite the diverse range of styles and subjects, the exhibition demonstrates the power of assembling multiples as a compelling vehicle of expression, as the artists transform this humble, sustainable material…dirt! into something monumental in form and content."

More Clay: The Power of Repetition
Sep 4, 2025 - Feb 1, 2026
Academy Art Museum
106 South Street
Easton, Maryland 21601

For more information: https://academyartmuseum.org/more-clay-the-power-of-repetition/

Iván Carmona and James Lavadour both have work featured in Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial, now on view in the Study Gallery and Print Study Center at the Hallie Ford Museum of of Art. 

"Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial, a popular biennial exhibition hosted by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art since 2006, will feature a selection of contemporary prints created at this important printmaking atelier in northeastern Oregon during the past two years. Organized by Rebecca Dobkins, professor emerita of anthropology at Willamette University and curator of Indigenous art at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, the exhibition opens July 12, 2025 and continues through June 20, 2026, in the Study Gallery and Print Study Center." 

For more information visit: https://hfma.willamette.edu/exhibitions/library/2024-25/crows-shadow-2025.html

Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial
July 12, 2025 – June 20, 2026

Hallie Ford Museum of Art | Willamette University 
Study Gallery and Print Study Center

Georgina Reskala will be teaching travel workshop in Mexico City February 1-8, 2026 with the Center for Photographic Art.  

"Join the Center for Photographic Art and photographer and educator, Georgina Reskala on an exciting journey to Mexico City during Zona Maco! This is a workshop that is focused towards a creative approach and away from the technical and/or rational constrictions that we assign to our work. We all feel stuck at times or out of ideas; this is when we need to feed our inner artist and put ourselves outside of our comfort zone."

Travel Workshop - A Way of Seeing
Instructor: Georgina Reskala
February 1 – 8, 2026
Limit 15 students (plus 1 scholarship)
$2,700

Applications Close: September 10, 2025
Notification of acceptance: September 20, 2025

For full details and information visit: https://www.photography.org/events/mexicoworkshop

James Lavadour has been selected to make a large-scale 2-D work for the Portland International Airport.

Port of Portland and the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) selected Oregon artists James Lavadour and Ryan Pierce to create a large-scale, 2D public artwork for Portland International Airport (PDX), anticipated to be installed in late 2025 and debut to the public in 2026. Both artists were selected by the PDX Terminal Core Redevelopment (TCORE) Public Art Committee.

Lavadour’s largest public artwork to date, the piece will be composed of 36 individual painted 24” x 30” panels in a grid formation that create one unified, complex painting. Conduit, the title of the painting, represents the idea of a passage or connector. Meaningful in the context of the airport, “conduit” as a theme is also personally significant to the artist: aware of the significant challenges faced by Indigenous artists trying to gain the recognition of mainstream galleries, Lavadour founded Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts in 1989, the only professional printmaking studio on a reservation in the USA, to provide a conduit for Native artists. Painted in Lavadour’s signature expression over a period spanning more than 10 years, the assembled panels represent the depth and breadth of Lavadour’s painting practice, his commitment to uplifting Native artists, and a welcome to visitors. In Lavadour’s words, “I think of this painting as similar to a beaded belt to be given as a welcoming gift to all that pass. This homeland is open and welcome to all.”

“RACC is proud to partner with the Port of Portland to bring James Lavadour’s and Ryan Pierce’s visionary works to PDX. Lavadour’s Conduit honors our region’s landscapes and Indigenous artistic legacy, while Pierce’s Liberated Luggage invites travelers to engage with the resilience and playfulness of our natural world. These installations exemplify RACC’s commitment to ensuring public art reflects the diversity of our communities and enhances our shared spaces,” says Kristin Law Calhoun, Director of Partnerships and Programs at the Regional Arts & Culture Council.

Read the full press release here.

Susan Seubert’s March 2025 exhibition Fragile Beauty was reviewed by Wonderful Machine.

“The exhibition was recognized by UNESCO and the UN as an official side event for the 2025 International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. It has been featured in regional publications, is the subject of a short documentary by Pattern Integrity Films, and even connects to a piece of her work hanging in the Portland Art Museum’s Monet exhibit. These accolades amplify the project’s core message, carrying it from the quiet gallery space into a global conversation about art, science, and our planet’s future. It serves as a stunning, visceral record of what we see and what we stand to lose.”

Read the full story here.

Marie Watt’s work is included in Four Freedoms, now on view at the Kansas City Art Institute, June 26, 2025 - August 15, 2025

"For Freedoms deepens civic engagement through the arts. We provide artists, institutions, and communities a decentralized space for connection, and the tools to support their creative capacities and resilience as cultural producers. Together, our network is building more robust civic dialogue, and inspiring a sense of belonging and responsibility for one another. Our vision is of a joyful, interconnected world where creativity is seen as integral to enhancing civic expression, listening, healing, and justice."

Four Freedoms
KCAI Gallery | 4415 Warwick Blvd, Kansas City, MO 64111, USA
June 26, 2025 - Aug. 15, 2025

Created by For Freedoms, with Hank Willis Thomas and Emily Shur, in collaboration with Eric Gottesman and Wyatt Gallery. For Freedoms is an artist-led collective that uses art to inspire civic engagement and conversation. Their work highlights the diversity of America through nonpartisan, creative interventions.

For more information: https://kcai.edu/calendar/Four-Freedoms/

Marie Watt’s solo exhibition, Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, opens at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University on August 26 - December 6, 2025.

“Multimedia artist Marie Watt is a storyteller. As a member of the Seneca Nation (one of six Indigenous nations that form the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) with German-Scots ancestry, she tells stories that draw from both Native and non-Native traditions: Greco-Roman myth, pop music and Pop art, Indigenous oral narratives, Star Wars and Star Trek. 
Watt reminds us of the stories told by her Seneca ancestors: how the world came to be; what we have to learn from animals; our ethical obligations to the planet, as well as to past and future generations. She tells stories about humble, everyday materials and objects—blankets, quilts, corn husks, letters, ladders, dream catchers—that carry intimate meanings and memories. 

Over the course of her career, Watt has told these stories through prints. The collaborative printmaking process is consistent with Watt’s desire to build communities through art and storytelling. The stories the prints tell are personal, cultural, and universal, dealing with elemental themes including shelter, dreams, the earth and sky, the cosmos. 

As a Klamath elder once told her: “My story changes when I know your story.”

Since this exhibition debuted in 2022, Marie Watt’s repertoire of stories has continued to expand and grow. In our presentation of the exhibition at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University, we have the privilege of including new work Watt has created over the past three years, including Forest Shifts Light (Sequoia, Crest, Canopy) 2025, a jingle cloud commissioned for this presentation. We are further honored to present this exhibition in Watt’s hometown—she was born in the Pacific Northwest and has called Portland home for almost thirty years.”

For more information: https://sites.google.com/pdx.edu/jsma-at-psu/storywork-the-prints-of-marie-watt?authuser=0

Storywork: The Prints of Marie Watt, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation
August 26 - December 6, 2025

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University
1855 SW Broadway
Portland, OR 97201

Marie Watt's solo exhibition MARIE WATT: Tuning to the Sounds of the Skies is now open at The Gund

"Marie Watt’s installations are created—and lifted—by many hands. Suspended above us, her sculptures invite us not only to look, but to gather, breathe, and take part. Inspired by the Coast Salish story Lifting the Sky, as shared by Vi Hilbert of the Upper Skagit tribe, Watt reminds us of a powerful lesson: that even in moments of fragmentation, people can come together. In the story, the sky has begun to press down on the world, dimming the light and overwhelming life below. The people, though separated by different languages, find one word they can share: yəhaw̓—to proceed, to move forward, to do. United by breath, intention, and rhythm, they lift the sky.

MARIE WATT: Tuning to the Sounds of the Skies
July 9 - December 14, 2025
The Gund
Kenyon College.
101 1/2 College Drive
Gambier, Ohio 43022

For more information: https://www.thegund.org/exhibitions/marie-watt-tuning-to-the-sounds-of-the-skies