Portland Art Museum & PAM CUT
Judy Pfaff is an innovator, acclaimed for her groundbreaking work in installation art during the 1970s. At a time when minimalism was prized, she approached spaces with maximal intention, filling galleries with maze-like accumulations of materials in linear and geometric shapes. Some have called it “painting in space.” Pfaff’s works on paper, like the one… Read more
While he was a young artist, David Park experimented with the predominant style of the day: abstract expressionism. However, he made a decisive turn toward representation and broke away from the fashion of the 1950s American art world. Park favored painting the figure either alone or in groups, using thick layers of paint and blocks… Read more
Constantin Brancusi’s polished bronze A Muse is one of the anchors of the Museum’s collection of European modern art. The sculpture is a refined distillation of a woman’s facial features. A muse is a person, or a personified force, that inspires artistic creation. Brancusi depicted this subject several times, making versions in marble, plaster, and… Read more
Art Unbound has been the Portland Art Museum and Northwest Film Center’s official podcast since March 2019. Originally launched as The Portland Art Museum Podcast, Art Unbound not only celebrates creative community members of Portland and its surrounding areas, but also those from around the world. 2021 has been a huge year for the podcast,… Read more
On October 8, 2021, Dr. Kara Cooney presented a virtual lecture for the Portland Art Museum audience titled When Women Ruled the World. We anticipated that Dr. Cooney’s lecture and the exhibition Queen Nefertari’s Egypt would raise a lot of difficult questions. On this episode, Jeannie Kenmotsu is joined by Sara Krajewski and Stephanie Parrish… Read more
Frank Okada once described his work as being “dedicatory in nature.” He said, “My parents, through good and bad times, always placed the first portion of newly cooked rice before their modest Buddhist shrine, dedicating that portion to the memory of those past and as an abiding affirmation of their faith. Occasionally, in thoughts conjured… Read more
The highly detailed work Selvian by Cameron Martin both excites and tricks my eye. Is this a photograph? A screenprint? A painting? Martin draws from multiple processes to create this piece and others in his Bracket series; he calls his approach “a kind of media collapse” that leaves us slightly disoriented about what we’re seeing.… Read more
“Abstract is not a style. I simply want to make a surface work.” —Joan Mitchell Mitchell is one of the foremost painters of Abstract Expressionism. In the 1950s, she lived between New York and Paris, where she developed a unique approach that set her work apart from the “all over” paintings of Jackson Pollock, Willem… Read more
I look at America’s heart—people, landscapes, and cityscapes—and I see it as an opportunity to add to an American art narrative … I paint because I am looking for versions of myself in art history and in the world. —Amy Sherald We are honored and excited to have the beautiful painting Saint Woman by Amy… Read more
“Diabolically beautiful.” “Ridiculously seductive.” “Subversively beautiful.” These are just a few reactions to Ron Nagle’s small scale ceramic sculptures. This photograph shows only a glimmer of the iridescent color and craggy surface of Fortgang. The scale feels off too—it seems like it should be bigger, more weighty, but the work is not even 5 inches… Read more