On paper, Marcel Dzama wouldn’t seem to possess the makings of an art star. An artist working in rural Winnipeg, making wispy, fairy-tale line drawings with diluted root beer syrup as ink stands no chance in the sophisticated world of contemporary art, right? But it turns out that Dzama’s spare, facile approach to drawing belies […]
John Motley
Welcome to the Ghosttown
A strange thing happens when you live in a city: You find yourself carving out a tiny piece of the landscape and claiming it as your own. A bar or a corner market or a record store becomes your favorite simply because it serves as a backdrop to your life, the setting for those memories […]
Hold Me, Please
As East Burnside continues its rebirth as a hotbed for hipster hangouts, boutiques, and art spaces, Renowned Gallery has quietly positioned itself at the heart of it all. The young gallery is a tiny and underdeveloped space that seems a little uncertain about what it will become, as artwork crowds the walls and a meager […]
Jenene Nagy
The works in Backyard Icing by PNCA’s sculpture artist-in-residence Jenene Nagy, are messy assemblages in which textures and forms collide and interpretations abound. Made from discarded objects found in a dumpster, Nagy’s sculptures revel in the physicality of their materials. Porous foam, uneven patches of dried house paint, nails and pushpins are painted and drizzled […]
Superego: In the Name of Awesome
On the Ego Productions website (www.egoproductions.org), you will find listed a few of the sketch comedy troupe’s artistic tenets, namely: “The needs of the audience are more important than the needs of the artist(s).” In a medium that’s all too often characterized by artistic indulgence, it’s refreshing to come across a show that brings theater […]
Cynthia Lahti
Cynthia Lahti has earned a reputation as an artist who deftly maneuvers between various media, from drawing to sculpting in glass, plaster, and bronze. This versatility is on display at her current show at PDX Contemporary Art, New Found Land, which presents a handful of slight porcelain sculptures, sketches in pastel and crayon, and, most […]
Maya Lin: Drawings from the Confluence Project
With a ceremonial groundbreaking earlier this month, construction on the
Michael Brophy
With a traveling retrospective currently on display at the Tacoma Art Museum, and a seemingly Twin Peaks-inspired
I Noticed Your Limp as You Got Up to Leave the Kitchen
We tend to think of memory as something stable, in which our remembering an event or feeling is akin to replaying
What It All Meant
The thematic lynchpin of Ty Ennis’ second solo show at the New American Art Union
Sophie Calle’s Exquisite Pain
While the initial excitement over the new Jubitz Center hasn’t worn off yet, it’s the center’s special exhibitions that
