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Visual Art
Posted inVisual Art

Portland Art Museum Wants to Be Used

Once hidden galleries can now be found; Rothko Pavilion presents a new way to see what was already there.
Avatar photo Suzette Smith

“We always want to respect our donors,” says Julia Dolan, Portland Art Museum (PAM)’s senior photography curator. “But we’re trying to orient directionally.” Dolan was leading a tour group through the new Rothko Pavilion, walking us into the north wing, which happens to house the now more accessible rooms dedicated to photography. Like several of […]

Posted inVisual Art

Seeing Ursula K. Le Guin’s Many Sides

Oregon Contemporary’s tribute to the novelist and multi-practice artist gets in the weeds in the best way possible.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin isn’t a typical exhibition. Ursula Kroeber Le Guin wasn’t a typical artist. Curated by her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, the new show installed at Oregon Contemporary is, by his definition, “nonobjective”—a sprawling love note unembarrassed by its devotion. Braiding her personal and creative worlds, the exhibition pulls together interactive […]

Posted inWinter Guide 2025

What Wanders Through a Body?

A new exhibition at Portland gallery Lumber Room compiles corporeal works by Louise Bourgeois and Isabelle Albuquerque. 
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

[What follows is one of the many merry articles in the Mercury’s Winter Guide 2025. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you’re feeling generous this holiday season, support us here.—eds.] The myth of feminine hysteria didn’t start in a Victorian sanatorium. Long before Freud heard […]

Posted inVisual Art

What Wanders Through a Body?

A new exhibition at Portland gallery Lumber Room compiles corporeal works by Louise Bourgeois and Isabelle Albuquerque.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

The myth of feminine hysteria didn’t start in a Victorian sanatorium. Long before Freud heard about it and thought it sounded super legit, ancient Greek doctors imagined the uterus as a restless “wandering womb,” traversing the body and wreaking emotional havoc. In The Wandering Womb at Lumber Room, Los Angeles-based artist Isabelle Albuquerque revives and digs […]

Posted inVisual Art

A Snapshot of Portland’s DIY House Show Scene

Buckman Publishing collects Choice Cuts from Corbin C’s immense archive.
Avatar photo Suzette Smith

Corbin C doesn’t think of himself as a photographer, even if Buckman Publishing just released a 170-page book of his snapshots, Choice Cuts: Disposable Camera Archives 2015-2023. “First and foremost, I’m a showgoer,” he says. “I love going to shows. I love dancing at shows. I love being at the front, right up by the […]

Posted inVisual Art

Anatomy of a Sculpture

Peek inside Portland ceramics artist Erika Rier’s world of mischievous, mythical monsters.
Avatar photo Megan Seling

This piece was first published by our sister publication The Stranger. Each one of Erika Rier’s ceramic creatures has its own story, and most of them are at least a little unsettling. There’s the vampiric little girl with several sets of eyes, and the crowned and horned woman clenching what appears to be a not-very-alive […]

Posted inMercury 25th Anniversary Issue

Art for Art’s Sake

Our favorite Mercury covers from the past 25 years.
Avatar photo Wm. Steven Humphrey

[Find the Mercury‘s 25th Anniversary Issue (in print) near you by using this handy-dandy map, and read all of our anniversary stories here.—eds.] I’m guessing the Mercury has published roughly 1000-plus issues since our debut in 2000, and unlike the vast majority of print publications, we feature cover art that rarely has much (if anything) to […]

Posted inQueer Guide 2025

On the Cover: Pastel Artist Pace Taylor Paints Their Way Toward Paradise

Last Call at the Rainbow Cafe incorporates shreds of Americana into a decidedly queer aesthetic.
Avatar photo Martha Daghlian

Artist Pace Taylor’s studio is surrounded by artifacts of Portland’s early history. It’s on the second floor of an early 20th-century brick warehouse, sandwiched between the railroad tracks and the Willamette, in a sleepy industrial neighborhood of North Portland. Chalky sticks of pastel are loosely arranged according to color on a central table, and multihued […]

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