The Portland Art Museum (PAM) has been named a 2024 Bank of America Art Conservation Project awardee for the restoration of Claude Monet’s Waterlilies, one of the French painter’s most universally recognized oil-on-canvas paintings. The masterpiece is one of 24 globally significant pieces to receive conservation funding support from the Bank of America program.

Support from Bank of America will facilitate a holistic conservation project focused on returning Waterlilies to Monet’s intended appearance. The conservation project is led by PAM conservator Charlotte Ameringer.  A non-original acrylic resin varnish saturates the paint films, causing the colors to appear darker and more intense. This varnish also imparts an even gloss to the surface. As a result, Monet’s soft, subtle colors, his variations of texture and luminosity, and his intentional emphasis on the painting’s surface are profoundly altered. The removal of this varnish is a complex undertaking and seeks to return Waterlilies to its original appearance as closely as possible.

The community is invited to follow the conservation process over the next seven to eight months on PAM’s website, as well as its social media channels. “We look forward to publicly sharing an important and critical aspect of museum work that is typically kept behind the scenes,” said Ameringer, PAM’s conservator.

The work will take place in the Portland Art Museum’s new conservation lab, part of a campus transformation now underway at the museum. The newly conserved painting will return to public view in late 2025 when the museum’s campus transformation is complete.

Part of a series of approximately 250 paintings of waterlilies (nymphéas in French) that Monet painted in his garden in Giverny, France, over the course of nearly three decades until his death in 1926, the Portland Art Museum’s Waterlilies (1914–15) is regarded as a particularly superb interpretation.  The artist’s son Michel Monet considered it one of the finest paintings that his father ever painted, and it hung in Michel’s dining room for over 35 years. The Museum purchased Waterlilies in 1959, a major acquisition made possible by the proceeds of a highly successful Vincent Van Gogh exhibition at PAM the year before. For 65 years, it has been a visitor favorite and the cornerstone of the museum’s strong Impressionist collection.

“We are very grateful to Bank of America for their generous support for this conservation work,” said Brian Ferriso, Director of the Portland Art Museum. “Bank of America has been a steadfast partner to the Museum for many years, providing crucial support not only for our artistic stewardship but for the Museum’s broader mission of connecting the community through art.”

The Art Conservation Project is one demonstration of Bank of America’s commitment to promoting cultural sustainability and making the arts more accessible. A wide range of support for cultural institutions around the world helps uplift communities and is one of the many ways Bank of America helps drive Responsible Growth. Waterlilies is not the only Claude Monet painting receiving conservation treatment in this year’s cohort of Art Conservation Projects. The Hill-Stead Museum will use its grant from Bank of America to restore three masterpieces in its permanent collection, to include Monet’s Fishing Boats at Sea. In 2019, the Kimball Art Museum announced it was able to purchase a 17^th-century giltwood frame for Monet’s Weeping Willow through a 2016 Art Conservation Project grant from the bank. For a full list of museums receiving grants through the 2024 Bank of America Art Conservation Project, please view the 2024 Art Conservation brochure (PDF).

“Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (Nymphéas) paintings are among the most beloved and recognizable artworks of the 20^th century, and the painting in the Portland Art Museum’s collection is an outstanding and cherished example,” said Roger Hinshaw, president, Bank of America Oregon and Southwest Washington. “The fact that this masterpiece is here in Portland is a testament to the powerful role the arts play in helping our community thrive both economically and culturally. Bank of America is honored to partner with PAM in helping realign this piece to the artist’s original intent, so it can continue a legacy of delighting and inspiring all who see it.”

This is the second time a piece in PAM’s collection has been selected for the Bank of America Art Conservation Project. PAM was previously chosen for a 2019 Art Conservation Project for the conservation of the Roy Lichtenstein Brushstrokes, the iconic sculpture in front of the museum on SW Park Avenue. Bank of America is one of PAM’s longstanding partners and has been involved with many projects, including supporting past PAM exhibitions including Jeffrey Gibson: They Come From Fire, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism and Paris 1900: City of Entertainment. Bank of America has also lent works from its private collection to PAM and the museum is a Bank of America Museums on Us Partner, where bank clients can use their debit or credit cards to obtain free entry into the museum the first full weekend of every month.

Bank of America

Bank of America is one of the world’s leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 69 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 3,800 retail financial centers, approximately 15,000 ATMs (automated teller machines) and award-winning digital banking with approximately 57 million verified digital users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 4 million small business households through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and more than 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BAC).

For more Bank of America news, including dividend announcements and other important information, visit the Bank of America newsroom.  Register for news email alerts.

The post Portland Art Museum receives Bank of America funding for restoration of Monet’s Waterlilies appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

The Portland Art Museum has announced a dynamic slate of exhibitions opening in 2024. From future-forward sneaker design to Impressionist masters and psychedelic posters, the exhibitions celebrate a wide range of artistic expression and offer visitors world-class experiences in the heart of downtown Portland. 

Opening in March 2024, Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks is an exhibition that sneaker-loving citizens of Portland and visitors are sure to enjoy—offering not only physical objects but digital imaginings, design concepts, and futuristic visions. Summer at the Museum brings Monet to Matisse: French Moderns, a stunning exhibition from the Brooklyn Museum featuring nearly 60 works of art from several renowned artists, opening in summer 2024. Pulling from the Museum’s deep collection of prints and drawings, Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s will present more than 150 rock posters representing the leading artists and designers of the genre alongside nearly 20 fashion items of the era. 

The Museum’s PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow’s newly opened Tomorrow Theater in Southeast Portland kicks off the new year with acclaimed costume designer Ruth E. Carter speaking in conjunction with the Museum’s Africa Fashion exhibition. Located at 3530 Division Street, the Tomorrow Theater is PAM CUT’s lively creative hub for cultural snackers. Home to a multi-media feast of creators and content pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, the Tomorrow is a space where local and global artists collaborate across disciplines and multi-interest audiences co-mingle to experience cinematic storytelling in all its forms. Events are offered Thursday through Sunday. Full schedule here. 

The Portland Art Museum enters 2024 with a strong, critically acclaimed set of special exhibitions on view. The spectacular Africa Fashion (through February 18, 2024), from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and making its only West Coast stop at PAM, honors the irresistible creativity, ingenuity, and unstoppable global impact of contemporary African fashions. The exhibition offers a rewarding conversation with PAM’s expansive, powerful Black Artists of Oregon (through March 24, 2024), which celebrates the work of Black artists in our state over more than a century through an intergenerational tapestry of more than 200 artworks by 69 artists. 

Throughlines: Connections in the Collection (through November 1, 2024) continues the collaborative conversation, presenting fresh perspectives on beloved favorites as well as new additions to the Museum’s collection while permanent collection galleries are closed for construction of the Museum’s Mark Rothko Pavilion. Now underway, this transformative expansion and renovation project is among the most significant in the city, and a key part of revitalizing a downtown core that has been slow to recover after the pandemic. When it is completed in mid-2025, the Rothko Pavilion will connect the Museum’s two buildings and create a more accessible experience for visitors.

In 2024 the Museum is expanding community access with the return of Free First Thursdays thanks to support from the Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All Program. The Museum’s new hours starting with the new year will include extended hours until 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and until 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. 

On the global stage in 2024, the Portland Art Museum has the honor of co-presenting artist Jeffrey Gibson as the representative for the United States at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (the Venice Biennale). The U.S. Pavilion exhibition, Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me, is commissioned and co-curated by Kathleen Ash-Milby, PAM’s Curator of Native American Art. Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, will be the first Indigenous artist to represent the U.S. in a solo exhibition in the 129-year history of the Biennale. 

For the latest exciting news and updates from the Portland Art Museum and PAM CUT, follow us on social media, sign up for our email newsletter, and keep an eye on portlandartmuseum.org and tomorrowtheater.org.

Exhibitions & events

TOMORROW THEATER
PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow

Carte Blanche: Ruth E. Carter

January 12, 2024

Living legend and Academy Award–winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter comes to the newly opened Tomorrow Theater as part of Carte Blanche, PAM CUT’s quarterly series giving polymath artists free rein to do what they want and share something new. Carter will talk with PAM Curator of Film & New Media Amy Dotson to reflect on her career as an artist, her influences from Afrofuturism, and more. Her latest book, The Art of Ruth Carter: Costuming Black History and the Afrofuture, from Do the Right Thing to Black Panther, will also be available for sale. 

The Carte Blanche weekend also includes screenings of her groundbreaking work in Black Panther (January 13), as well as a preview screening and Portland premiere of Sundance 2023 sensation Bravo, Burkina! (January 14) by writer-director and fashion designer Walé Oyéjidé. Presented in conjunction with Africa Fashion, on view at the Portland Art Museum through February 18, 2024.

Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks

March 30 – August 30, 2024

Coming to the Portland Art Museum from the Bata Shoe Museum in Canada, Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks is a groundbreaking new exhibition that features nearly sixty futuristic footwear designs like the auto-lacing Nike MAG. It explores how cutting-edge technologies, unexpected materials, and new ideas are transforming footwear today. The provocative exhibition features digitally designed and 3D-printed shoes, sneakers made from mushroom leather and reclaimed ocean plastics, and footwear created for the metaverse. Portland is a sneaker town and we’re thrilled to share this exhibition with our community. 

Co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum. Curated by Elizabeth Semmelhack, Director and Senior Curator, Bata Shoe Museum and Curated for PAM by Amy Dotson, Director PAM CUT// Center for an Untold Tomorrow and Curator, Film and New Media and exhibition design by Osmose. 

Monet to Matisse: French Moderns

Summer 2024

From the Brooklyn Museum’s renowned European art collection, Monet to Matisse: French Moderns showcases approximately 60 works of art considered to be modernist masterpieces. Focusing on France as the artistic center of international modernism from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, the exhibition features paintings, drawings, and sculpture ranging widely in scale, subject matter, and style. Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Surrealism are all explored in the work of Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and many others. 

Monet to Matisse: French Moderns is organized by the Brooklyn Museum. Lead support provided by the Flowerree Foundation, the William G. Gilmore Foundation, The Laura and Roger Meier Family, the McGraw Family Foundation, The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, and Exhibition Series Sponsors.

PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow 

Cinema Unbound Awards 

June 21, 2024 

PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow presents the fifth annual Cinema Unbound Awards celebrating multi-faceted artists working at the intersection of art and cinema who are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Past honorees have included artists Guillermo Del Toro, Steve McQueen, Shirin Neshat, Tessa Thompson, Gus Van Sant, Fred Armisen, Todd Haynes, 2023 James Beard Best New Restaurant Chef Gregory Gourdet, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, Garrett Bradley, John Cameron Mitchell, and innovators including MOMA’s Chief Curator Rajendra Roy, Academy Museum president Jacqueline Stewart, ShadowMachine co-president Alex Bulkley and UTA Artists’ Arthur Lewis. This year’s honorees will be announced in spring 2024.

Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s

September 7, 2024 – January 10, 2025

Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s reveals the passion and creativity of the era through the iconic rock posters of San Francisco and beyond. To capture the heady experience of life and music at this time, poster artists invented a graphic language to communicate the excitement of rock concerts, which featured liquid light shows and film projections. They drew on disparate historical precedents such as Art Nouveau, Wild West posters, and Victorian engraving and combined them with vibrating color, inventive lettering, and witty and provocative design. 

The exhibition brings together more than 150 rock posters, including work by the “big five” designers of the day—Rick Griffin, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, and Wes Wilson—as well as other superb talents, such as Bonnie MacLean and Bob “Raphael” Schnepf. Fashion both reflected and influenced the psychedelic look of the posters. The exhibition showcases approximately 20 eclectic vintage styles ranging from embroidered denim and hippy fringe to crochet and velvet.

Organized by the Portland Art Museum and curated by Mary Weaver Chapin, Curator of Prints and Drawings.

Continuing in 2024

Throughlines: Connections in the Collection

Through November 1, 2024*

Throughlines: Connections in the Collection embraces wonder and curiosity, bringing together artworks from across the Museum’s collections to explore the range of artistic innovation. This exhibition provides a glimpse of the exciting growth ahead as we look forward to the Mark Rothko Pavilion, a multi-year expansion and renovation project now underway that will make the Museum more accessible and inclusive while helping to revitalize Portland’s downtown cultural center. While the galleries undergo this significant transformation, the Curatorial team, the Learning and Community Partnerships department, and PAM CUT colleagues have come together to present a collaboratively designed exhibition and event series that showcases our art collections and programs in a new light. After construction is complete in 2025, visitors will enjoy a fresh take on the collections as the curators reimagine, reassess, and transform the galleries throughout the Museum campus. Throughlines: Connections in the Collection previews  just some of the new approaches and collaborations we are undertaking.

* Note: Throughlines will close from December 20, 2023 – January 25, 2024, due to construction on the Museum’s Mark Rothko Pavilion.

Closing

Africa Fashion

Through February 18, 2024

Africa Fashion opened at the Portland Art Museum after acclaimed runs at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. This first-of-its-kind exhibition, making its only West Coast stop at PAM, honors the irresistible creativity, ingenuity, and unstoppable global impact of contemporary African fashions. Garments and textiles dating from the mid-twentieth century to the present day, contextualized by a range of cultural touchstones such as Drum magazines, Fela Kuti record albums, and studio photography from Sanlé Sory, celebrate the transformative and liberatory power of self-fashioning. The New Yorker’s art critic Hilton Als called Africa Fashion a “vital and necessary exhibition.”

Exhibition organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Curated by the V&A’s Christine Checinska, Ph.D., Senior Curator of African and Diaspora Textiles and Fashion, with Project Curator Elisabeth Murray. Curated for Portland by Julia Dolan, Ph.D., The Portland Art Museum’s Minor White Senior Curator of Photography. Sponsored in part by LEVER Architecture, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Silver Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. William Whitsell, Mary and Ryan Finley, Fred and Gail Jubitz, Cyndy and Ed Maletis, The Standard, Greg and Cathy Tibbles, Ameriprise Financial, Oregon Cultural Trust, William G. Gilmore Foundation, The Laura and Roger Meier Family, The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, and Exhibition Series Sponsors.

Black Artists of Oregon

Through March 17, 2024

This expansive, transformative exhibition of more than 200 artworks by 69 artists highlights and celebrates the work of Black artists in Oregon over more than a century, exploring this history both through the lens of Black artists whose works are represented in the Museum’s collection as well as the works of influential artists who, historically, have not been exhibited or held in museum collections.

Considering both their presence and absence is critical to understanding the breadth of Black artistic production in Oregon—even in the midst of historic exclusion—as well as how the impact of that history affects our understanding of American art history and the history of the Pacific Northwest. This exhibition serves to deepen our awareness of the talented artists who have shaped and inspired artists regionally and nationally, and it is the first of its kind to consider the work of Black artists collectively in Oregon.

“It’s about the history and presence of Black artists in the state,” curator Intisar Abioto told The Skanner. “For me, it’s really community and ancestral work.”

Organized by the Portland Art Museum and curated by Intisar Abioto. Generously supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Meyer Memorial Trust, Terra Foundation for American Art, The Ford Family Foundation, The Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Endowment for Northwest Art, and the Museum’s Artist Fund.

Other news

Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program paves the way for greater access and expanded access

The Portland Art Museum announced in December the return of Free First Thursdays, thanks to generous support provided by the Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All Program. Beginning January 4, 2024, Museum admission will be free on the first Thursday of every month from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and programs at the newly opened PAM CUT Tomorrow Theater in Southeast Portland will also be free. Additionally, the Museum announced new hours starting with the new year—Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Rothko Pavilion Expansion & Renovation Project

Construction on the Museum’s Mark Rothko Pavilion expansion and renovation project is underway.  This transformative project will connect the Museum’s two buildings and create a more accessible experience for visitors. The Pavilion is named in honor of renowned abstract artist Mark Rothko (1903–1970), who spent his childhood in Portland after his family immigrated from Latvia. The project is among the most significant in the city, and a key part of revitalizing a downtown core that has been slow to recover after the pandemic. When the Rothko Pavilion opens in mid-2025, 95,000 square feet will have been added or renovated, and many of the permanent galleries will be rehung, introducing fresh perspectives on the Museum’s collection.

2024 VENICE BIENNALE: Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me

The Portland Art Museum and SITE Santa Fe, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, present Jeffrey Gibson as the representative for the United States at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. 

Celebrated for an artistic practice that combines American, Indigenous, and Queer histories with influences from music and pop culture, Gibson creates a dynamic visual language that reflects the inherent diversity and hybridity of American culture. Using abundant color, complex pattern, and text, he invites deep reflection on identity, inspires empathy, and advocates for a widening of access to democracy and freedom for all. On view April 20 through November 24, 2024, Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me provides international audiences with the first major opportunity to experience Gibson’s work outside of the U.S.

For the U.S. Pavilion, Gibson will activate the interior and exterior of the building with a series of new and recent works that invite reflection on individual and collective identities including sculpture, paintings, multimedia works, and a site-specific installation activating the pavilion’s courtyard. The title of the exhibition references Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier’s poem Ȟe Sápa.

The post Announcing 2024 exhibitions, including Monet to Matisse: French Moderns appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

Tickets on sale October 16 at noon PDT

The Portland Art Museum’s film and new media center, PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow, is thrilled to announce the opening of the Tomorrow Theater, a new space devoted to expanding what constitutes cinema, art, and multimedia storytelling. The 250-seat Tomorrow Theater will open its doors to the public on November 3, 2023, with programming designed to inspire and surprise audiences and artists no longer content to be contained to a single medium, label, or art form.

The opening week, featuring legendary artist David Byrne, will give audiences a taste of what to expect from PAM CUT’s new venue in the heart of Southeast Portland, at 3530 SE Division St. On November 3, Byrne will take over the Tomorrow Theater with an interactive and live presentation of Reasons to be Cheerful, in a special Portland-themed edition. Founded by Byrne, Reasons to be Cheerful is a nonprofit online magazine, which aims to inspire curiosity about how the world can be better and to encourage us to be part of that change.

Byrne’s take-over will launch the theater’s signature series, Carte Blanche, where world-class artists and creative polymaths are given free rein to activate the theater in bold and interdisciplinary ways. Future Carte Blanche guests will include Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter, who will join in January 2024.

“We are beyond thrilled to open the Tomorrow Theater, and to introduce audiences to all of the wild and wondrous things that storytelling can be,” says Amy Dotson, Director of PAM CUT and Curator of Film and New Media at the Portland Art Museum. “We’re excited for artists to show off the capabilities of the theater and demonstrate what’s possible. Like the creatives it will support, the Tomorrow Theater is a real shape-shifter. It’s simultaneously a cinema, a performance space, an experimentation hall, and a community gathering place, to feed those who are culturally curious and uncontainable!”

The Tomorrow Theater

The Tomorrow Theater is rooted in nearly a century of Portland movie-going history, starting with its origin as a vaudeville theater. The theater embodies PAM CUT’s mission to advance media arts in all its forms, embracing programming that defies neat categorization, sprawling across different crafts and mediums. The theater’s signature series, featuring curation by guest artists, partners, and creatives, will combine film, dance, comedy, sports, music, XR, performance, and so much more. When audiences walk into the theater, they will never quite know what Tomorrow brings.

The timing of the Tomorrow Theater opening aligns with the Portland Art Museum’s Rothko Pavilion expansion and renovation project. While the Museum’s Whitsell Auditorium is offline, the Tomorrow Theatre ensures a wide range of programs and events are still available to Museum, PAM CUT, and general audiences interested in the intersection of art, storytelling and media arts.

Andee Hess and Makrai Crecelius, of Portland-based and female-owned interior design studio Osmose, redesigned and renovated the theater from its most recent iteration as an X-rated cinema, with characteristic humor and imagination. The space nods to its past, with an eye toward the future.

Programming

For full programming details, to purchase tickets and the latest news, visit tomorrowtheater.org.

November: Unorthodox

Programming for November unfolds around the theme Unorthodox, which celebrates artists pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. Programs and events include a live activation of David Byrne’s Reasons to be Cheerfulwith screenings of Spike Lee’s American Utopia, Contemporary Color, with a performance by Cascadia Winterguard, and Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense, with a performance by PHAME; the inaugural FAM JAM, introducing an immersive screening of Laika’s Missing Link; a week of Unorthodox Docs, including a Documentary Now! mini- fest; the launch of futurist Lance Weiler’s Prototype series; a celebration of multi-talented national treasure Dolly Parton on the eve of her new album, Rockstar—plus sneak peeks galore including Mister Organ, Finding Groovopolis, Sundance 2023 feature gem Bad Press, and so much more!

December: Cultural Snackery

December offers a smorgasbord of fun and pop-culture joy, with a rare screening and performance of The Shining Back and Forth, a 10th Anniversary re-examining of Short Term 12 with special guests, a deep dive into the genius of Paul Reubens, and The Future of Film is Female series, curated by Caryn Coleman, showcasing the new work of groundbreaking women filmmakers. 

January: Shift/Happens

PAM CUT starts the new year with a focus on the innovations and innovators shifting the way we tell stories. Programs and events include Carte Blanche: Ruth E. Carter, featuring a live conversation with the Oscar-winning costume designer and celebration of her artistry (to coincide with Africa Fashion at the Portland Art Museum); Smart Phone Orchestra, an interactive storytelling experience that makes use of individual smartphones to create a single, monumental work of music and live storytelling; a special Portland edition of Podcast, but Outside and a John Waters double-feature and costume night!

Coming Soon: 

Partner programming begins in February 2024 with Venice Biennale, IndieCade, Blackstar Projects, Spring/Break, The Numberz FM, and Izhonny. A variety of local and national media artists, curators and innovators will also lend their eclectic talents and tastes to Tomorrow. 

Tomorrow Theater ongoing Signature Series: 

Audiences can look forward to experiences that fall into a wildly fun range of Tomorrow Theater signature series. They include: 

• Art House Cinema—Make art based on the movies, series, and performances you love. 
• Carte Blanche—Your favorite artists and polymaths are given free rein to do what they want to do and share something new. 
• The Intersection—Modern-day vaudevillian mashups of cinematic experiences that include performance, new media, participatory arts, technology, music, and audio storytelling. 
• Fam Jam—Cinematic fun for the whole family, including coloring pages, dance breaks, and maybe even a kazoo! 
• The Great Escape—Incredible, transporting new work from all over the world. 
• Game-o-rama—Join us for e-gaming and live commentary board game matches, TV trivia to game shows, and even world-building, scavenger hunts, contests, and quests. 
• Night of 1000….—Hours upon hours of interactive programming, screenings, and performances in tribute to an iconic actor, singer, performer, or director. 
• Now. Here. This—Featuring one-night-only live podcasts and broadcasts, audio storytelling performances, and spoken word for an eye (and ear) opening experience. 
• Now>>Then—Ahead of its time? Right on time? An abomination of its time? You decide. We’re looking back to look forward. 
• Special Guest Stars—Takeover nights by artists, curators, and partners. 
• Sneak Peeks—First run films, previews of new series, podcasts, games, or test-driving new cinema tech before your neighbors do.
• Social Cinema—You’re coming to see and be seen. Featuring more than a little razzle dazzle for a fully immersive cinematic experience, this includes costume nights, dance lessons, and visual enhancements that make the night shine. 
• Tour Stop—When bands, artists, and performers come to town, they stop by to share the art and films that inspire them. 
• The Blind Date—It’s date night with a twist, where no one knows what the night holds. Clues and instructions will be given at ticket purchase but full details will not be revealed until entry.
• Unorthodox Docs—Nonfiction arts that play with the boundaries of form, function, style, and story, with cosplay too! 

Tomorrow Theater Sponsors & Partners include: National Endowment for the Arts, Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission, Ritz Family Foundation, Anish Savjani, Travel Portland, Mary and Don Blair, and The Lamb Baldwin Foundation.

The post PAM CUT announces Tomorrow Theater’s opening programming appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

Grace Kook-Anderson: Intisar, can you talk about your approach to this exhibition as an interdisciplinary artist—explorer, researcher, performer, curator, writer, photographer, dancer?

Intisar Abioto: As a dancer and movement artist, I find creative possibilities in who is in the room. Black Artists of Oregon will show works by about 65 Black artists across eras and generations. The gathering of these artists’ works, the artists, artists’ families, and the communities in which they move and live in the Museum feels like the greater creative act, even more so than the exhibition itself. There’s a timeline here, a continuum of efforts and dreams to be sensed, that’s catalytic. The creative act will be what we all make of the moment. What will come of this?

What compelled you to begin research on Oregon’s elder Black artists, and what has learning about these artists meant for you?

In 2018, I’d been living here in Portland for eight years and realized that I didn’t have an understanding of the Black artists who’d lived here in generations and eras before me. With support from Oregon Humanities’ Emerging Journalists, Community Stories Fellowship, I began research through oral history interviews with Black artists and elders Adriene Cruz, Bobby Fouther, Isaka Shamsud-Din, and others; archival research; and building a collection as part of the research. Understanding the efforts of Black arts elders and forebears reveals strong foundations laid, intergenerational power, and legacy. It has strengthened my purpose as an artist, tasking me with understanding and enacting success not as a soloist, but as an intergenerational collaborator. 

What has your research process been? What did you find in our PAM archives?

The research began in winter 2018 through oral history interviews, archival and collections research, and building a personal collection of works by Oregon Black artists. I spent time in regional and national institutional archives; Oregon Historical Society, City of Portland, regional newspapers, and PAM’s Crumpacker Library, among them. In PAM’s archives I found materials from a family scrapbook on artist Thelma Johnson Streat, among other things. The research at Crumpacker was cut short by the pandemic, but I look forward to continuing research there. In 2019, in PAM’s collections I was able to identify about ten Oregon-connected Black artists, a number that also influences this exhibition. All of this research continues, finding new pathways from previous insights found. 

You’ve been very thoughtful in thinking about the individuals in this exhibition and the intergenerational exchange of artists. Why is this important to you?

It’s important that we are able to understand, feel, and benefit from our efforts as Black artists in this region, across generations. There’s much in Oregon’s history of Black exclusion that would erase us, tell the story as if we were never here. As attacks on truthful tellings of Black history take place nationally, we know Black art history is Black history. Black art history is not only a tool of education, but a tool to affirm and support Black life and living today. An intergenerational
telling—connecting younger artists with Black arts elders and ancestors—is vital. No one generation holds the story. We all must be engaged. 

What do you want this exhibition to mean for Black representation and power at PAM and beyond? How does that ripple out to collections, programs, and the Museum’s Black Art and Experiences Initiative? 

I see this exhibition as a strong planting. As a dancer, I’m concerned with and excited by who is in the room. This exhibition is a gathering of dreams, perspectives, wisdoms, and also vital questionings. We know representation is not enough. We know that power is in choice, authorship. In inviting these artists into this space through this exhibition—in revealing our presence—my goal is also to leave the reins with them. It is to reveal Black artists’, curators’, and Oregon’s Black communities’ authorship in arts history and thus in what’s to come at PAM and other regional institutions. 

Can you share with us some details about artists who are important anchors in the exhibition? 

Two artists who are anchors are Thelma Johnson Streat (1911–1959) and Charlotte Lewis (1934–1999). Both were born elsewhere, but moved to Portland as young children. Both became artist educators who worked with children. Thelma Johnson Streat, a painter, dancer, and folklorist, was purposeful about teaching young people about acceptance and diversity through her work, ultimately opening schools in Hawaii and British Columbia. Charlotte Lewis, a painter and textile artist, was also an arts teacher at the acclaimed Black Educational Center in Northeast Portland. These foundational Black women artists are given prominent place in the exhibition. Their lives and works still have much to teach us.

The post “Black art history is Black history”: Guest curator Intisar Abioto on creating Black Artists of Oregon appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

The Portland Art Museum’s film and new media center, PAM CUT // Center for an Untold Tomorrow, announced today new details of the Tomorrow Theater at 3530 SE Division Street in Portland, Oregon. Opening in late fall 2023, the Tomorrow Theater will offer robust, participatory programming, serving as a model, both locally and globally, for the future of media arts and cinema. The space will function as a creative hub for artists and audiences not content to be contained to a single medium or art form.

Located in the heart of Southeast Portland, the Tomorrow Theater will devote its nearly 9,000 square feet to the celebration and expansion of cinematic storytelling and new media, in a community becoming increasingly recognized as an eclectic artistic and cultural hub. By offering even more opportunities for the public to connect with media arts, the theater reflects the PAM CUT ethos to reimagine for whom, by whom, and how cinematic stories are told and connect with new audiences in fresh ways. Through screenings, exhibitions, performances, and interactive programs, the Tomorrow Theater will further PAM CUT’s mission to advance media arts in all its forms.   

Each evening will bring something different, through a variety show approach that incorporates at least two distinct art forms simultaneously. Embracing cinematic storytelling in all its forms – from film and series to animation and gaming, plus XR, performance, and audio stories too – the events and happenings will be as varied as the artists and audiences colliding on any given night. The Tomorrow Theater will showcase a broad range of mixed media arts that cannot be experienced anywhere else in the state, closely developed with artists and partners based in the Pacific Northwest and from around the world. 

The full programming slate and partnerships will be announced this fall, with SPRING/BREAK Art Show kicking off the theater’s opening in partnership with PAM CUT for a multi-media art takeover. SPRING/BREAK Art Show is an internationally recognized exhibition platform founded in New York that activates underused, atypical, and historic exhibition spaces to challenge the traditional cultural landscape through group shows with artists of all mediums.

“Cinematic storytelling, like artists and audiences, comes in all varieties and flavors. With the Tomorrow, we’re building a home for cultural snackers, a space where when people walk through this door, they will never quite know exactly what Tomorrow brings,” said PAM CUT Director Amy Dotson. “As a home to a multi-media feast of creators, content, and audiences who are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, we are firmly committed to mixing it up. By creating a space where artists collaborate across disciplines, audiences co-mingle and are exposed to a variety of art and media stories folks; they will never have the same experience twice.” 

History and reimagination

Originally imagined as architect Isaac Geller’s 1925 vaudeville theater, the space has lived many lives in many eras, from its vaudeville origins to hosting art house and Spanish-language films, to its most recent iteration as the X-rated movie house the Oregon Theater. With deep storytelling roots and nearly a century of Portland history, the venue itself is a kindred spirit to the vision for the Tomorrow Theater. 

Andee Hess and Makrai Crecelius, of Portland-based and female-owned interior design studio Osmose, designed the theater. Known for their wildly imaginative and unique projects, their work has been featured in The New York Times and Architectural Digest as the creative forces behind spaces as varied as Salt & Straw ice cream shops and Fred Armisen’s goth-inspired house. The project was developed by Guerrilla Development in concert with PAM CUT and the design team. 

The food program will be led by well-known Portland chef, Leather Storrs (former chef-owner of Noble Rot), who recently also opened The Mahonian, an event space and private dining venue. His playful approach to food and beverage will drive menus that will change according to themes, artists and vibes of the featured screenings, events, and experiences.

The partnership is part of ChefStable group, whose portfolio of projects includes James Beard Award winning OX Restaurant, Voysey, helmed by legendary bartender Katie Stipe, KEX Hotel which houses Pacific Standard—Jeffrey Morganthaler’s newest project, acclaimed Restaurant St. Jack, along with numerous other hot spots and event spaces in Portland and Northwest.

PAM CUT Tomorrow Theater creative program advisors include: Savina Neirotti (Venice Biennale Cinema), Liz Mowe (Kickstarter), Thomas Gewecke (Former Chief Digital Officer, Warner Bros), Aimee Lynn Barneberg & Nico Fearn (Nike), Producer David Cress (Portlandia), Rosemary Colliver (ShadowMachine, PAM CUT Co-Chairwoman), Tim Williams (Oregon Film), Chloe Mason (model & actress), Shelby Rachleff (Westridge Foundation), Julie La’Bassiere (Publicity & Awards Strategist, AppleTV+), René Pinnell (Founder, Artizen), Byron Beck (journalist & media personality), and Patty Brebner (Opinionated), as well as PAM Board Chairwoman Alix Meier Goodman and PAM CUT Co-Chairwoman Mary Blair.

Facilities and programming

PAM CUT has consulted with Full Aperture, a premiere cinema tech company that works with Sundance and Telluride Film Festivals, and museums throughout the country, on modern, flexible approaches to venue and experience. The Tomorrow Theater features: 

• 8,744 sq. ft. with up to 300 seats designed with modular fixtures to encourage maximum flexibility. 
• A fully digital event and experience, powered by the ticketing and theater experience company FilmBot.
• Accessible amenities such as gender-neutral restrooms, prime seating for guests with disabilities, and more.

The Tomorrow Theater will occupy many roles, functioning as:

• A creative space. Programming will go beyond film and emphasize intersectionality across art forms, with each night a unique experience designed for the culturally curious. The space will host international cross-media performances, screenings, exhibitions, immersive theater, game nights, workshops, and more. 

• A community space. Along with new partner programs, the theater will host guest-curated programs, Museum partner programming, and quarterly local offerings and experiences by legendary Portland performers Izohnny to media artists in residence partners The Numberz FM. 

• An event space. Many local and regional celebrations, events, and conferences have taken place over the decades at the Museum’s main campus downtown, and with The Tomorrow Theater, the Museum, and PAM CUT will have an east-side space for the community to gather.  

“Portland Art Museum embraces art in all its many forms,” said Portland Art Museum Director Brian Ferriso. “As a museum, we value media arts storytelling as a fine art and want to ensure that we bring that to the community far and wide.” 

Bringing the Tomorrow Theater to life is made possible by the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, Ritz Family Foundation, Travel Portland, Mary and Don Blair, and the Lamb Baldwin Foundation.

Portland Art Museum membership will include access and discounts on Tomorrow Theater programming and events. 

The post Announcing the Tomorrow Theater appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

For the past two years, the Portland Art Museum has been in partnership with BRENDA ARTS to create a series of BRENDA LAB videos around works in the Museum’s permanent collection. This partnership has been supported by the Museum’s Artist Fund, the Learning and Community Partnerships Department and an Oregon Community Foundation grant. With a focus on inspiring youth and young adults, these collaborative videos are written, directed and produced through the lens and thinking of Portland-based artist and educator Spencer Garland. 

BRENDA ARTS started life as a BIPOC teaching practice which focused on art creation and Black studies-encouraging Black and Brown youth to create new narratives for their communities. BRENDA is shifting focus into becoming a media company which creates content for a new generation of Black thinkers. The students of BRENDA ARTS are an integral part of the content development process. They help make things that represent them.

BRENDA LAB is Bill Nye for Black Art. Staring Spencer Garland, each episode investigates POC arts and culture with a bent on community involvement. Being produced in conjunction with the Portland Art Museum, LAB offers a fun look into some of today’s most exciting artists. Beginning during the height of pandemic closures, this partnership continues to reach audiences through videos on the Museum’s Youtube channel. In addition to these online engagements, the partnership will conclude with an in-person presentation of Garland’s work at the July 15th Animation Art Day for Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio.

To watch previous BRENDA LAB episodes, visit the Museum’s BRENDA LAB Youtube Playlist, where you can watch videos on the work of Wally Dion and Ōishi Junkyō, and keep an eye out for future videos. 

The post New BRENDA LAB video for AAPI Heritage Month appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

Human | Nature: 150 Years of Japanese Landscape Prints, currently on display in the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, visualizes Japan’s relationship with the natural world through a dazzling selection of woodblock prints from the 19th and 20th centuries. All of the works in the exhibition, from Katsushika Hokusai’s Great Wave to Maki Haku’s Fuji san –12, are from the museum’s permanent collection, which numbers over 2,500 Japanese prints. As Japan Foundation Assistant Curator of Japanese Art, it is my responsibility to research this superb print collection and activate it ways that connect the museum community with Japanese art and culture—Human | Nature is one major outcome of this work.  

As a new arrival in Portland last June, I was tasked with conceptualizing an exhibition of Japanese prints while simultaneously getting to know the museum and the city.

As a native of the good and green, but very flat countryside of England, I was excited by the spectacular landscape I encountered upon landing at PDX, and after a few weeks in Portland, it became clear to me that the mountains, forests, and rivers around the city are incredibly important to its people.

Portland seemed the ideal place, therefore, to explore another equally beloved and rugged landscape—the landscape of Japanese woodblock prints. 

Collections Manager, Anne Crouchley, helped me take hundreds of Japanese prints out of museum storage to examine for this landscape-themed exhibition, which would ultimately include around 60 artworks.

In addition to considering things like the physical condition, historical interest, and aesthetic appeal of each print, I prioritized artworks that I felt might resonate with people in the Pacific Northwest, and so motifs like Mount Fuji, waves, waterfalls, and even bridges naturally rose to the top of my exhibition shortlist.    

With a checklist of artworks in hand, I collaborated with the museum’s conservator, registrars, and preparators to plan the exhibition’s installation. Japanese prints require special display conditions due to their light-sensitive nature, so they are typically exhibited in a dedicated space on the first floor of the Main Building.

However, preparations for the construction of the Rothko Pavilion require the temporary closure of this gallery. As such, for the first time, Japanese prints would be installed in the Modern and Contemporary Wing, in a gallery designed for displaying photography in low-level light conditions. Through consultation with my colleagues, photography curator Julia Dolan and Asian art curator Jeannie Kenmotsu, and with the help of some nifty 3D modeling software, Human | Nature started to take shape in this exciting new space. 

A week before the exhibition opening, a skillful team of preparators assembled to install my final selection of prints, including some finicky 200-year-old books that required extra love and care.

The photography gallery has proved to be ideal for vibrant Japanese prints, which seem to glow from the dim nooks of this intimate space. Here, visitors can study the extraordinary craftsmanship of landscape prints up close, or sit back to quietly contemplate their colorful visions of the natural world—but beware, this is a limited time opportunity!

In early May, the doors will have to close so that these delicate artworks can be returned to their custom-made acid-free boxes, where they will rest safely in the dark for some five years or more until their next public outing.

— Helen Swift, Japan Foundation Assistant Curator of Japanese Art

Human | Nature: 150 Years of Japanese Landscape Prints, December 3, 2022–May 7, 2023. Organized by the Portland Art Museum, Oregon, and curated by Helen Swift, The Japan Foundation Assistant Curator of Japanese Art. Support provided by the Japan Foundation.

The post Human | Nature: Unveiling the beauty of Japanese landscapes in Portland appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

The Sustainability Labs focuses on U.S.-based creators, artists, directors, and producers looking to change their personal models of creative, financial, and business sustainability. The six-month program beginning October 17 is designed to ensure that talented media storytellers receive the support, resources, and connections to the professional opportunities necessary to diversify—and thrive—creatively, financially, and personally. A $2,500 stipend is given to each artist who will work with a mentor specific to their creative visions. They will also have access to renowned producer and media industry life coach Kisha Cameron, who has worked with artists at the Sundance Institute, Film Independent, and The Gotham.

Mentors and speakers from Oregon’s thriving arts scene include staff from the Portland Art Museum, ShadowMachine, Nike, Dark Horse, and Skylight Collective. Nationally recognized artists Jennifer Reeder (Knives and Skin), Jillann Spitzmiller (Meow Wolf), producers David Cress (Portlandia), Rebecca Green (It Follows; Founder, Dear Producer), and Kishori Rajan (Random Acts of Flyness), and executive leaders Michel Reilhac (Head of Venice Film Festival XR), Nate Bolotin (XYZ Films) and Patty Brebner (Opinonated) will also take part.  

PAM CUT screened 2021 Sustainability Labs fellow Angela Washko’s film Workhorse Queen recently as part of a documentary series. In an interview with Willamette Week, Washko said:

The Sustainability Labs are made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and generous contributions from Joan Cirillo and Roger Cooke, the Reil Foundation for Arts and Creativity, and the King Family Foundation. 

The 2022 Sustainability Labs Fellows are: 

Jamal Ademola—Los Angeles, CA
Jamal Ademola is an award-winning Nigerian-American artist and filmmaker with a diverse array of talents. Jamal poetically works across a kaleidoscope of disciplines – film, video, animation, drawing, painting, installation, acting, and performance. His work has been exhibited and screened in art galleries and film festivals around the world. In addition to creating eye-catching commercials and nurturing his artistic practice, he is writing and developing innovative projects for film & television in hopes to facilitate healing. He is currently in production on a hybrid, docu-fiction film titled “Ellas Vinieron de Las Nubes” and writing a visual autoethnographic film project titled “Pieces of You.”

Ariel Baska—Centreville, VA
Ariel Baska is an award-winning, openly disabled horror and documentary filmmaker. Her horror short about medical gaslighting, Our First Priority won the Disability Advocacy Award from Superfest Disability Film Festival and was an Official Selection of FrightFest UK. She was a speaker at SXSW in 2022, a recipient of multiple scholarships from Sundance Collab, and a fellow of the RespectAbility Virtual Lab. She has also produced several projects including Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters, a documentary about the creator of Hellboy.

She is the founder, co-host, and executive producer of Ride the Omnibus, a podcast and non-profit parked at the intersection of pop culture and social justice. She writes about disability representation for her column in Ghouls Magazine, where she contributes film reviews and analyses. She curates creative spaces, from hosting Anime Invasion at the Alamo Drafthouse Winchester to Accessibility & Disability Connects, a monthly meetup for filmmakers interested in accessibility and representation at the Gotham, to upcoming panels and journal articles on disability and horror. 

Barri Chase—Portland, OR

As an entrepreneur and creator of Light Dancing Productions, Barri Chase is an award-winning writer/producer/director of the feature motion picture The Watchman’s Canoe. She is a member of the Southeastern Cherokee Council, which has influenced her craft of telling cross-cultural, relatable stories. After a career in beauty, fashion, and fine-art photography, she focused on cinematography, then became a director of music videos, and short films, and currently works primarily on features. She finished her MFA in Screenwriting in April 2020.

Currently, she has a television series in consideration with several major networks and is in development on new narrative feature films. She has a deep understanding of the region’s history, culture, and people, and recognizes the landscape as a key “character” in a story. She has worked in most of the crew departments of filmmaking. Barri has been a guest lecturer, judge, and panelist on multiple international film festivals since 2017 and is one of the top seven female producers and directors to keep your eyes on according to yeahflix.com

Roland Dahwen—Portland, OR
Roland Dahwen is a filmmaker and video artist. He received his B.A. in literature, and since then he has worked between video installation, nonfiction, and fiction films. He has taught film at the University of Oregon and Pacific Northwest College of Art. His performance piece, The Overseas Banquet, was presented at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time Based Art Festival in 2019. His short films include: There are no birds in the nests of yesterday (2013), Haft-Seen (2017), and May 35 (2019). His first feature film, Borrufa, premiered in 2020 at Portland International Film Festival and is currently in distribution with Collective Eye Films. 

Carla Forte—Miami, FL

Carla Forte was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and lives and works in Miami, Florida. Forte, first trained as a contemporary dancer and soon established herself as an interdisciplinary artist incorporating dance, film, and performance through different media. She is the co-founder and film director of the Bistoury Physical Theatre and Film in Miami. Her feature films and experimental pieces have been screened at prominent film festivals and galleries such as 75 Festival Internazionale del Cinema di Salerno; The University Galleries of Florida Atlantic University; CICA Museum in Gyeonggi-do- South Korea; 16 SANFIC Santiago Festival Internacional de Cine Chile in; 62 Rochester International Film Festival; 37 Miami Film Festival; OGA VideoArt Exhibitions Roma;  41st Atlanta Film Festival; Cube Art Project; and Les Instants Video, among others. 

Her works have been acquired by Gravitas Adventures, South Florida PBS, and Troma Entertainment, and she has won commissions, awards, and artistic residencies from many prestigious programs.

Headshots courtesy the artists; Roland Dahwen headshot courtesy Vi Son Trinh.

The post PAM CUT announces 2022 Sustainability Labs Fellows appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

Nohemí Pérez creates multidisciplinary work that reflects upon humanity’s relationship to the natural world and the tensions that arise from modern pressures upon the environment. Pérez focuses on her native Catatumbo region of Colombia, an area bordering Venezuela and marked by natural-resource extraction and drug trafficking. Large-scale charcoal drawings on canvas depict this dense environment; the artist embellishes the canvases with small, embroidered figures of animals and humans struck down by the violence occurring within the landscape. Charcoal is laden with meaning: It references the exploitation of natural resources that often triggers the loss and death in this place. The Museum has acquired three works from Pérez’s Palmar series, including a large charcoal drawing and two small paintings. “Palmar” can refer to the trees of the area, but also can be used colloquially to mean “snuff out” or “kill.”

The Portland Art Museum acquired the works in April at the 2022 EXPO Chicago international fair of contemporary art, from Instituto de Visión, a gallery with spaces in Bogotá and New York. The purchase was funded in part by the Northern Trust Purchase Prize, which was awarded this year to the Portland Art Museum and two other regional art institutions to support collection of work by emerging, diverse contemporary artists at EXPO Chicago. Generous additional funding for the purchase came from Sharon and Keith Barnes, Pat and Trudy Ritz, and Diane and Herb Rankin, who were among a group of Museum Patrons and supporters who accompanied curators to EXPO Chicago this year.

Sara Krajewski, the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, initiated the selection of this work, amplifying the artist’s concerns and connecting them to larger challenges faced globally: “The Portland Art Museum is incredibly proud to be awarded the Northern Trust Purchase Prize this year, which has allowed us to bring in an impactful work by Colombian artist Nohemí Pérez, the first in our collection. We immediately connected with the beautiful depiction of nature in the work, as well as the way Pérez addresses the environmental degradation and violence happening in her home country. We know that this work will speak to our audiences in Portland just as strongly as it does to Nohemí’s communities where she lives and works.”

The acquisition builds upon the Museum’s commitment to continue building the collection to include works by Latinx artists and women artists.

Visitors can now experience the work by Nohemí Pérez this summer as part of the exhibition Traces, running from July 30, 2022, through February 26, 2023, on the fourth floor of the Portland Art Museum’s Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art.

The post Newly acquired works by Nohemí Pérez on view in special exhibition appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

Nine objects of cultural patrimony removed from Wrangell, Alaska, in the 1930s and 1940s are now back home in the hands of the Naanya.aayí clan, the Portland Art Museum and the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska announced this week. The The Museum and tribal leaders held a transfer ceremony in Portland in late May, and the repatriated objects—a Killerwhale Hat from the original Chief Shakes House Flotilla of Killerwhale Hats; Killerwhale Flotilla Chilkat Robe; Killerwhale Stranded on a Rock Robe; a Mudshark Hat; three Mudshark Shirts; Killerwhale with a Hole Fin; and the Storm Headdress—arrived in Juneau, Alaska, in early June.

Between 1921 and 1944, Axel Rasmussen, Superintendent of Schools in Wrangell, AK, and later in Skagway, AK, collected Native American art and cultural items primarily from the Tlingit communities he served and from dealers in the region. After his death in 1945, the collection was transferred to an art dealer and purchased by the Portland Art Museum in 1948. 

In 2002, these nine cultural items were claimed by the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes on behalf of the Naanya.aayi clan and the Wrangell Cooperative Association under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). They belonged to the Naanya.aayi clan and were kept in their clan house (known as the “Shakes House”) under the custody of the hereditary clan leader, Chief Shakes, over multiple generations. The cultural items have ongoing historical, traditional, and cultural importance that is central to the Tlingit clan structure.

NAGPRA, a federal law, exists to return human remains, associated or disassociated funerary objects, sacred/ceremonial objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. Cultural patrimony includes “objects possessing continuing cultural, traditional, or historical importance to the heritage of a group, particularly those considered inalienable by the group as of the time the objects had been separated from the group or from the historical setting of the objects.” 

The claim was approved by the Portland Art Museum in 2019. After delays caused by COVID-19,  the objects were formally deaccessioned from the Museum’s collection and repatriated to the Tlingit & Haida.

On May 27, a closed ceremony was held at the Portland Art Museum with Tlingit lineal descendants, clan leaders of the Wrangell Kiks.ádi and Teeyhítaan clans, Tlingit & Haida representatives and museum staff to clear a path home for the objects. A reception followed and was attended by additional museum staff, trustees, and local Native American community leaders and representatives. 

Luella Knapp of the Naanya.aayí clan and a member of the Wrangell Cooperative Association is caretaker of some clan objects and shared, “We are so grateful for all of the work that was done to return the Naanya.aayí clan’s atóow. As a caretaker of these clan items, it is an honor. Receiving them back, one by one, brings back the spirit of the person who wore them. We are so happy to have them returned to Wrangell’s Naanya.aayí.”

“The Tribe shares its deep passion and commitment to support our clans—today the Naanya.aayí—to bring our ancestors home,” said Tlingit & Haida’s Chief Operating Officer Roald Helgesen. “Háw’aa, Gunalchéesh to the Portland Art Museum for their recent efforts to repatriate our ancestors. Our clans and our people know our ancestors through song and story. Reuniting our ancestors with our people is a humbling honor.”

“This is a landmark occasion, too long in the making,” said Portland Art Museum Director Brian Ferriso. “Although museums continue to try to do the correct thing and be on the right side of history in fulfilling their mission, sometimes mistakes are made and it is essential for the wrongs of the past to be made right. That is what we are attempting to do with the return of these works.” 

Ferriso, who has headed the Portland Art Museum since 2006, has emphasized building stronger and more collaborative relationships with the Indigenous communities represented in the museum’s Native American Art collection, with increased focus on making progress addressing outstanding repatriation claims. 

“Stewardship is not just about storage and exhibitions—it is also about our relationships with communities,” continued Ferriso. “We are honored to take this important step with our partners in the Tlingit communities, and we look forward to working together in future discussions.”

Kathleen Ash-Milby, who is a member of the Navajo Nation, has been the Curator of Native American Art for the Portland Art Museum since 2019. She stated that repatriation was one of her top priorities when she took the position.

“I am grateful that times have changed and the museum is committed to moving in the right direction with this first repatriation to the Tlingit by the Portland Art Museum,” Ash-Milby said.

“By returning these ancestral objects to their communities, we can begin to repair a complicated history between Indigenous people and museums. It has been an honor to help with the final steps of this repatriation and see these ancestors finally swim home.”

The post Swimming Home: Nine objects repatriated to Tlingit tribe appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

IDEAL PDX’s mural beautifully and intricately depicts Frida and Diego’s visit from the Mictlan, as they bring some of the traditional and cultural symbols of Mexico to the lands of the Multnomah, Cathlamet, Clackamas, Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other tribal territories of the PNW.  Rich in images of nature and mythology, IDEAL’s mural gives visual language to the ways in which culture, place and movement show up in artists’ practices today.  In this article, each IDEAL PDX artist shares more about their journeys, their influences, and their inspirations within their own work. It is inspiring to see the varied ways in which artists of the Mexican Modernism movement are still making an impact on contemporary, diasporic Latinx practices. Read on to learn more about each artist’s path and practice.       

Daniel Santollo (Tekpatl) – México 

“INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ARE PRESENT IN EVERY FORM AND ART FITS THEM VERY WELL.”  —Daniel Santollo

My journey began right after graduating from High School: I started my art journey working in digital illustrations, murals, fine art, and apparel design. I was influenced by the work of Akiro Toriyama –  Japanese Manga Artists, and my high-school art teacher, Gwen Hullinger, whose teachings introduced me to different artistic mediums and whose encouragement inspired me to pursue my artistic career.

I was born in Michoacan, México, which is known as “the soul of México,” as it is one of the states that impeccably preserves its nature, arts, culture, and indigenous values up to the present time. The love and admiration I have for my roots are the most significant inspiration for my work—and although my parents emigrated when I was very young, I have found my own ways of preserving their culture within my art.

During pandemic times, I reinvented myself in my most recent work and developed my branding, called Toltekpatl Clothing, which focuses on Mexican Meso-American art. 

My work can be seen around the city of Portland through narrative murals and social media platforms. In addition, I have worked with the Portland Trail Blazers, Portland Street Art Alliance, and Portland Parks Foundation, while also collaborating with other local artists and businesses to create and participate in different art shows.

I am an active member and a lead mural artist of IDEAL PDX, a latinoamerican art collective.

I am currently working on a series of digital illustrations emphasizing my culture and personal experience in my studio located in the center of Portland. 

Follow my journey on Instagram: @tekpatl_art 

William Hernandez  – Perú 

“IF YOU WANT TO BREAK BARRIERS, AND MAKE SOMEONE WELCOME, THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO CONNECT.” —William Hernandez

Since moving to Portland in the early 2000s, I have dedicated myself to introducing art to the wider community. I have been an artist-in-residence for Milagro Theater, held workshops through the Portland Art Museum, and am currently teaching painting classes for all ages through the Latino Network-Studio Latino program, Catlin Gabel School, and more. 

Even when I was a child, I found joy in creating art and was determined to pursue the field as my profession. When I was 17, I spent a year learning from art books so that I would be ready for the National School of Fine Arts entrance exams in Lima, Peru. Unlike most of the applicants, I did not receive any formal training in art, but I persevered and was selected for admission from a large pool of candidates. This accomplishment felt so good. 

It was very emotional and gratifying when I was leaving our first meeting at PAM with the news of this important art commission that we got: a huge 30 ft x 10ft mural. Wow!  If you want to break barriers, and make someone welcome, there are many ways to connect. For this reason, I see art as a way to create connections with others, and this is especially true of this commission to paint a six-panel mural in the Schnitzer Sculpture Court at the Portland Art Museum in honor of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The theme I wanted to focus on is Globality. While they are important icons in Mexican history, they are also well-known globally and are influential in the greater scope of global history and culture. They bring their amazing lives, traditions, and art to our region, the Pacific Northwest. Our entire community can appreciate and share in their splendor and universal messages.  

I am convinced that this important collaborative project will give way to the beginning of new creative proposals, founded on the values and vision of creative leaders with Hispanic heritage in our community. I would like to continue contributing to the community using my passion for the arts, teaching, and leading IDEAL PDX in new challenges and opportunities for the future. 

In addition, I firmly believe in the positive effects of art, especially during these difficult times. “Being creative,” “as well as motivated and carefree without perfection are key pieces to staying active, inspired, and maintaining a positive attitude.  “My life is bright, so my colors need to be bright. I’m an optimistic, happy person, and I want to transmit this feeling to the people who view my work.”

I am feeling overwhelmed in a good way with many amazing personal projects and much more on behalf of my group that is happening right now.  This is the time, be prepared! Finally, I am currently preparing for my third solo exhibition in Seattle. So, if you want to know more about cool things, please don’t be shy to ask.  

Instagram: @hernandezpdx
Website: www.williamhernandezart.com 

Jessica Lagunas – México

“It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.” —Eckhart Tolle

For eleven years, I have served as the Creative Director for IDEAL PDX. This role has allowed me to help cultivate Latin American arts and culture in Portland, develop emerging and professional artists, increase Latin American cultural visibility and expand the identity of the Latin American artist in our community. I have given all of my love and energy to this volunteer role. It is my life’s work and personal journey. For this, I am grateful.

I have had the privilege to witness and participate in the creative transformation of community spaces in this role. Honest and humble artists have taught me to be vulnerable and flexible. I have learned to develop interpersonal bonds between communities to forge networks that lead to exciting collaborations. The compensation I have received from this work has been personal growth and leadership development.

I entered the world in Toluca, México. From a very young age, my dream was to be an artist! I can still see myself as a young girl painting the patio of my grandmother’s house with red clay or drawing on her white walls with charcoal. In college, I traveled throughout México, visiting different towns. Every trip allowed me to discover, learn, and embody my culture. These root experiences ground me in my work today. They are my strength and pride. They shape the heartfelt role of being a cultural ambassador for my country. These formative experiences are the source that I draw from and create with to work through life. 

Gratitude fills me endlessly. I am grateful to all the artists who have trusted me. Their gift to the world is their magic, time, and knowledge. I appreciate every person who has believed in me and helped cultivate my talents. I have received much more than I could imagine. Everyone has opened my mind and heart. I am lucky.

I found my purpose. I work tenderly and arduously for it. I discovered the “why” of all my actions, and I have endured the lessons of my journey. Day by day, I am closer. I see the lighthouse. It guides me and holds my hand. It never let go.

Instagram: @la.ave.jess 
Website: www.idealpdx.com

José Solis – México

“LIFE IS AN ODYSSEY.” —José Solis

I became an apprentice washing brushes, sweeping floors, and learning some primary painter’s tricks of the trade. I helped paint large banners for theaters, wall graphics, brush lettering, and mural restoration techniques at a very young age. One day, while browsing through a magazine, I found an ad for the Customizing Center School in Los Angeles, CA., where I put all my efforts to enroll. It was at that time that I was able to learn design techniques for painting airbrushed murals and graphics on vans. My work was shown in Hot Rodding magazine right away, and I started to get requests from personal and business clients to paint graphics on their vans. 

On weekends in the studio, we would gather with other artists, friends, and neighbors.  While some of us painted portraits just for fun, others brought their guitars and musical instruments to play music, and sing. We bonded over sharing our ideas and future goals and dreams. Those were my wonderful years! As a child, I always felt the need to create art in different forms: from pencil drawings, palm weaving, and wood carving to making colorful kites with china paper and straw. I sold these kites to kids in my hometown in San Luis Potosi, México.

After a few years, I eventually quit a good-paying job in Washington, the Studio, and gave up good times to move to Portland.  I was in search of a future as an artist with my wife and kids. I became a student at the Museum Art School (Pacific Northwest College of Art) in Portland to study Graphic Design.  Through this program, I got to meet and talk to several artists who incurred and inspired me to pursue my dreams. I had no idea that becoming an artist and following my dreams were going to be so hard; trying to survive as an artist in Portland is an odyssey, especially when you have a family to feed. However, I did not want to give up my dreams. My family needed food on the table, so for days and weeks, I walked the streets with my box of paints and brushes in one hand and business cards in the other, looking for work in art studios, sign and body shops, car dealers, stores, etc. 

I knew that I eventually would “find the light.” I did—while I was sweeping the floors at the church, working as a janitor making $3 an hour. The Franciscan friar, Michel Gagnon (RIP*), called, “Jose, please follow me;  I want to show you something.”  He pointed to a massive wall and asked, “Do you see that wall? Do you know someone who can paint a Mural?” I responded, “No, I don’t.” He then replied while pointing his finger,  “Jose, you will paint a mural on this wall.” 

I thought I was dreaming; I had never painted anything this big! I knew this was the opportunity of my life. I never focused on why I came to Portland and worked so hard in my spare time, but thankfully, after eight months of intense painting (with some all-nighters), the mural was completed. The Oregonian newspaper published a page filled with photos of the mural calling me “The Michelangelo of Ascension.” 

Since this happened, the opportunities have not stopped, and I have had the chance to grow my art skills day by day. After The Ascension Mural, I created  The Viacrucis (Stations of the Cross), a permanent display of sixteen hand-carved woodblocks for the same Ascension Church.                                                                                                         

I  participated as a scenic artist, painting the backdrops for the movie Coraline, the Best Animated Feature Film of the Year Academy Awards USA 2010 produced by Laika Entertainment. I won the Silver Medal Award at the International Film & Television Festival of New York, and Best Spiritual Documentary Judge’s Award winner for Art director on God save Us from Your Followers, to mention a few. 

In the end, I believe that my most significant achievements will be with me forever, as they are the reward for my hard work. The life of an artist is an individual journey, and I’m thrilled to be able to build and create a legacy in this world through all my projects, and I hope that they inspire many to continue pursuing their work and never give up.

I feel grateful and honored to be chosen by the IDEAL PDX team to paint Frida’s mural and to be able to work with other talented Latino artists- “brothers and sisters of the brush”-  who I can learn from, share ideas, and techniques with, have fun and write history with for future generations of Latino Artists in Oregon.                                                                                                                                                                                          

* Franciscan friar Michel Gagnon was my spiritual leader and a motivational person who influenced my life in a big way at a time when I was starting to lose faith in myself. I was mentally fragile and vulnerable, and he helped me turn my life around so that I can be where I am now.

José Solis

Instagram: @jscreativeartstudio
Website: www.jscreativearts.com

Romina del Castillo – Perú 

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” —Pablo Picasso 

My desire to create art stems from the memories of my childhood in my native country, Perú. But this is something I wouldn’t understand until much later.  I lived in Lima, Perú in my grandparents’ apartment. During the 1950s, my grandparents migrated to the capital from the Andean region of Andahuaylas in search of a better life.  But in their new home, they also encountered the struggles, and sometimes indignities, of being “provincial” in the big city.

Soon enough, at the age of 6, I found myself on my first of many migrations. This one was with my mother to our southern neighboring country, Chile with the promise of prosperity and stability; no hyperinflation, no terrorism, no blackouts, no bombs. My younger self was blissfully unaware of Perú’s perpetual internal political conflict, and I happily continued to visit my grandparents, spending my entire summers back in their apartment.

Lima was “the grey,” as we say, because of the endless coastal fog that covers it, but to me, it was full of color and life. The busyness and chaos of the city, full of colors and patterns set amongst a concrete jungle, was a sensory overload to my young self.  Fluorescent paint seemed everywhere. The “mantas” or aguayos woven fabrics, which are seen on display at markets and adorning everyday people, had the most intense polychromatic combinations. 

It is easier now for me to see how my experiences as a child deeply impacted my artistic self.

It was sometime later… after more migrations, after college, after learning fine arts techniques, after working on murals and after showing my own paintings … when I met Paulin Paris, the artist who would introduce me to a technique I now practice in my own art. He was in need of an assistant and I was eager to keep the ball rolling with learning and making art. Paulin had a heart as big as his imagination, and he quickly went from being my employer to be a friend and mentor. At that time, Paulin was working on a technique called straw marquetry which he had learned by watching videos of Martha Stewart. By a lucky twist of fate, he decided to switch me from mostly administrative tasks to hands-on assistance with his projects.

This is how I learned straw marquetry, slicing and ironing straw after straw, gluing, and making countless decorative tiles. It was hard not to fall in love with the material, the “poor man’s gold” as it was once referred to. Each straw was one of a kind, and the way it reflected and interacted with the light was very special. Working with an exacto knife as my main tool felt very satisfying too. The concentration and involvement that this process-oriented art form required created a calming space for me, much in contrast to the existential battle that oil painting had sometimes felt like.   

One day at the atelier, Paulin received a shipment of straw. Along with the usual gold, ivory, and bronze hues we had been using came a catalog with the full array of tinted straws offered. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw the loudest pinks, fuchsias, canary lemon yellows, and shamrock greens. Pablo Picasso once said, “inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” And it did. Now I wanted to explore the material in a more selfish way than within the confines of my workday at Paulin’s studio. I wanted to fulfill my own vision. So, I began buying and collecting my own palette of hues. My inspiration? The beautiful geometric patterns of the aguayos, the humble fabrics sold by the meter in Perúvian markets which had captivated me in my youth, provided me with endless ideas.

I gave my new body of work a name in Quechua, the Andean language my grandparents had once spoken but never passed on to their children for fear of discrimination. I wanted to honor that part of our history. I named the work Maimantataj Kanki’ or Where Are You From? because it alluded to my experience as an immigrant, never fully belonging to a place, feeling like a forever foreigner even in my own country. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

It has been a great honor to be invited by IDEAL PDX to collaborate on a large size mural for Frida Kahlo’s exhibition at Portland Art Museum. Deep diving into Frida’s history, exploring the early Méxican cosmovision, working in creative synergy, and learning from each other with this amazingly talented cohort of painters has been an invaluable experience. I hope this collision of works and styles brings about new pathways of art-making and storytelling for all involved. Even you… so see you at the Museum this spring! I hope you find inspiration and that it finds you working.  

Instagram: @rominibini
Website: www.rominadelcastillo.com

The post Frida and Diego Are Here: The Life and Work of IDEAL PDX Mural Artists appeared first on Portland Art Museum.

Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection is an exhibition rich with layers of communal and artistic camaraderie that helped build the vision for the formation of post revolution Mexican national identity.  Kahlo and Rivera’s works sit in conversation with their peers throughout each gallery in the exhibition, highlighting the collective that surrounds these two well-known artists. The focus on the collective within art and art-making has shaped and inspired the community partnership work for this exhibition, with one of the first partnerships culminating in the creation of live mural painting in the Museum’s Schnitzer Sculpture Court.

Working from March 2nd through April 2nd in both a triptych mural and video projection art, artists Hector Hernandez, Angennette Escobar, Christian J. Barrios and Victor Hugo Garza have conceptualized images of Kahlo that capture the vastness of her being within her gender expression, mestiza identity, and physical disabilities. While it is exciting to watch the bold color and beautiful forms of their mural work unfold over the last couple of weeks, it is a great pleasure to be able to share more about each artist and their individual practices in this post. Moreso, it has been extremely gratifying and inspiring to see how these artists have come together to create the Metamorphosis Mural in the Sculpture Court. Read on to learn more about each artist and their perspectives through their contributions in this article.    

HECTOR HERNANDEZ

Hector Hernandez’ first experience painting murals was achieved in Mexico City while studying a program in Social Anthropology. During that opportunity Mr. Hernandez participated as collaborator for two murals under the guidance of the Mexican master painter Arnold Belkin. This experience allowed him to follow a path to community murals from the teachings of the Mexican school of painting. Following his academic formation Mr. Hernandez received an MFA from the University of Oregon in 1999 in painting and a MIS in Art and Education, with a Bachelor in FA in addition to an undergraduate degree in Social Anthropology. Currently Mr. Hernandez has been teaching mural painting at Portland State University and Chemeketa Community College for the last 12 years, and also has developed an exchange program with National School of Sculpture, Engraving and Painting “La Esmeralda” in Mexico City, painting murals with students from both Universities.

HECTOR: First of all I would like to thank the Portland Art Museum, Sara Krajewski, Jaleesa Johnston, Stephanie Parrish, and Hana Layson for this great opportunity to create the Metamorphosis Mural, that was the result of previous conversations years ago about the creation of a mural for the upcoming exhibition of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism. I proposed to Hana in early conversations to paint a mural during the exhibition following the example of the Mexican painter José Clemente Orozco during the exhibition 20 Centuries of Mexican Art in 1940 at the Museum of Modern Art of New York. The creation of a mural during the exhibition was part of showcasing the Mexican mural movement taking place in Mexico, which has been so influential to the USA art scene. The Mexican modernism influence in the USA can be identified through muralism, but also there are other aspects of such artistic Mexican influence, such as the approach to social realism subjects and art materials experimentations among others.  

The Metamorphosis Mural

In this 21^st century, the influence of Mexican modernism can be felt through the works of other artists, such as Frida Kahlo. Her works and contribution to the art world could be identified in terms of her subjects’ approach, as well as the diversity in mixed media art objects. The Metamorphosis Mural is an approach to the subjects that our postmodern culture deals with, such as issues of gender and sexuality, multiracial persona, and people with different capacities or disabilities.

My work as a muralist deals constantly with social and cultural subjects and I enjoy approaching those subjects in a way that speaks to the people in general. I also notice that the visual narratives I develop in my murals and artworks are interpreted in different ways by people from different cultural backgrounds; therefore, I’m approaching my subjects in a simple manner, so they can resonate in a universal way. I also enjoy teaching mural painting in the Chicano Latino Studies Program at Portland State University, and having a background in social anthropology allows me to further explore subjects on cultural dynamics, ethnicity, and interethnic relationships. It is my hope that my artwork will contribute somehow in a positive way to deal with and face the issues of our contemporary society that have been a historical constant. 

-HHH 2022

Website: www.behance.net/hectorhh
Website: www.hectorhh.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hectorhh.mural
Instagram: @muralsbyhector

ANGENNETTE ESCOBAR

Angennette Escobar is a working artist and teacher living in Portland, Oregon. Escobar has a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Sculpture and a minor in Art History. She also attended the MFA program at the University of California, San Diego with a focus on Sculpture and Performance Art. She currently exhibits at Blackfish Gallery in Portland, Oregon and Trails End Gallery in eastern Washington. Escobar holds a Masters of Arts in Teaching from George Fox University and teaches Sculpture and 3D Design at Wilsonville High School in Wilsonville, Oregon. Escobar is a Mexican-American artist that was raised along the Mexican border in South Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. Her most recent work often involves Mexican religious iconography, specifically Milagros, small metal charms that represent miracles. She uses body imagery intertwined with religious objects to explore her cultural identity and heritage as well as her corporeal reality as a human being. 

ANGENNETTE: As long as I can remember, the work of Frida Kahlo has resonated deeply within me as an artist and as a Mexican-American woman. Kahlo’s influence is very evident in the work I make. I feel strongly that it is vital that young artists see themselves reflected in both local artists as well as prominent art historical figures and I am intensely grateful that the Portland Art Museum has curated an opportunity for both of these to happen with the Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism exhibition and the live painting of the Metamorphosis Mural. I would also like to thank Latino Art NOW which includes Hector H. Hernandez, Christian J. Barrios and Victor Hugo Garza. It has been a pleasure collaborating with such fiercely creative Latino artists. This experience has impacted me greatly and it will permeate throughout my own personal art making as well as in my teaching practice at Wilsonville High School, where I will be teaching a dual language class titled Latino Art and Culture, where Mexican Modernism and muralism will feature prominently in the curriculum.

Instagram: @angennetteescobar

CHRISTIAN J. BARRIOS

Christian J. Barrios was born in Mexico City where he grew up in a traditional household. When he was very young, he learned the art of ceramic painting and Talabera in his family business. At the age of 16, he moved to the United States. Years later, he met Gene Zanni who was a marquetry artist; Christian apprenticed for him for 7 years, learning a lot about marquetry, such as how beautiful types of wood can create wonderful pictures. Also during this time, Christian learned other visual arts, like acrylics and paper maché. Christian has painted murals that represent cultural diversity and community. Some of these murals have been created in collaboration with youth at different school locations. Currently, Christian is investing his time in helping underserved communities by teaching art in different schools of Portland, OR through Latino Network -Studio Latino, ETHOS, and RightBrain Initiative. He is an active member of IdeAl-PDX and a member of the Equity Committee of Grace Art Camp and Young Audiences Associated Board. 

CHRISTIAN: I love being part of this community and teaching the magic of art, photography, Mexican folk art, and Muralism in schools and organizations, such as Right Brain Young Audiences, ArtsWA, and many others that work with kids and our community. I love color in my life because color can affect our emotions, mental clarity, and energy levels, so I love to see that in my murals. I am so thankful to the Portland Art Museum for allowing me to be part of this beautiful project and blessed to work with these three fantastic artists and human beings. Their talents have made this project a unique and unforgettable experience for me. 

Thank you, 
Christian J Barrios

Instagram: @chrisjbarrios_art

VICTOR HUGO GARZA

Victor Hugo Garza is originally from Monterrey, Mexico but has lived most of his adult life in the United States. He has been interested in the arts since he was very young. Pursuing his artistic interest, he moved to Hollywood, California to attend film school, where he graduated with a specialty in sound and post-production. After working in the Hollywood industry as a sound designer for 10 years, he relocated to Oaxaca, Mexico, where he studied painting and worked with different mediums: oil, acrylic, watercolor, ink, mixed media and wood. His work was shown in galleries around the city. He created murals with a community of artists. As a composer and guitarist, he produced two records of his original music in L.A. Victor has also lived in Poitier, France for a year, where he took art classes and taught English. In Iowa City, he taught theater, dance and history for high school. In 2005, he moved to Portland, Oregon to study art and alternative education and began teaching at the Portland Waldorf School the same year, where he still teaches today. His artwork has been shown at several galleries around Portland, and his visionary work has traveled across the world via social media. Today as a digital artist, graphic designer, and a videographer, Victor Hugo is interested in bridging new technologies with art. His mission is to innovate, inspire, and instill hope, bringing a positive message with his vision.

VICTOR: I love being a Waldorf teacher and an artist. Both passions allow my spontaneity and my creativity to flourish. The greatest satisfaction is doing what I always wanted to do. I have been able to make music, write books, paint murals, travel the world and make a living making people happy. Knowledge is power and it’s a blessing to be able to teach the new generations. Being able to serve others gives me great joy.

I am a very curious person and this insatiable thirst drives my impulse to keep improving myself all the time. My art and videos are a reflection of this. I want to use new technologies to innovate, to inspire, and to instill hope, bringing a positive message with my vision. 

Thanks to the Portland Art Museum and our team of artists for the opportunity to share our vision and our love for Frida Kahlo and our culture with so many people. It’s been a pleasure to participate with all of you. 

Victor Hugo

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victor.bizantium

The post Collective Process: The Artists Behind the Metamorphosis Mural appeared first on Portland Art Museum.