Portland Art Museum & PAM CUT![[Image description: Arbre (Tree), Minami Keiko, 11 7/16 x 11 7/16 inches, color etching and aquatint on paper. A square print depicting a highly stylized landscape featuring a large tree, a cloud, and a partial sun. The large tree begins at center bottom, its thick trunk rising and splitting into a wide V shape. The black bark is depicted as short vertical dashes grouped and layered at the trunk’s sides to convey depth. In the space left by the V-shaped branches are three oversized leaves placed side by side. The one in the middle has a pointed top while the other two have rounded tops. They are larger than the tree’s trunk and are composed of a multitude of smaller etched leaves over vertical dashes. Enveloping the large leaves and the upper branches is a muted green shape resembling a circle with the top edge depressed into itself. The circle contains more vertical black dashes. A line drawing of a bird is perched on the top right of the green shape. Above, a thin cloud composed of horizontal dashes appears. Just off center at upper left, a half circle resembling a partial sun is composed of concentric dashes. The background is a pale gray and resembles woven fabric.]](https://nwfc.pam.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Minami-Keiko.jpg)
Minami Keiko’s etchings offer the magic of fairy tale-like, narrative settings. Her fine touches on the printing plate and understated colors result in delicate, sometimes whimsical scenes. For me, she is often sweet without being cloying. Yet some prints hint at a deeper and more mysterious sense of ennui, loneliness, or alienation. Minami was orphaned… Read more
Portland-based artist George Johanson once said, “I feel like I’m doing a portrait over and over again of the city.” Following Mount St. Helens’ eruption in 1980, the volcano became a motif in those portraits. Sometimes it sends a black column of smoke into the sky. Other times, as in this glorious print featured in… Read more