What does it mean to write in space? At Reed College’s Cooley Gallery, new director and curator Derek Franklin thinks about it, bringing together three eloquent artists who take language into form. IF pairs serigraphs by Sister Corita Kent, a Roman Catholic nun who eventually left the order to devote herself fully to anti-war, pro-love Pop art, with sculptures by key Northwest School figure and longtime Portlander Hilda Morris. Kristan Kennedy, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s artistic director and curator of visual art, rounds out the show as its sole living artist.
See everything in the 2026 Spring Arts Guide collection here. Find a print paper here! If you haven’t signed up for a subscription or regular contribution, we can do that for you too.
Upon entry, Kent’s “IF” (1965) lures the eye upward. The serigraph—a silkscreen print in fine art parlance—hangs high on the wall with a subtle vulnerability. Two orange letters hover toward the composition’s top edge, as if pushing to transcend the picture plane. A feeling of possibility emerges through the conjunction and its visual form.
Morris’ sculptures feel a little vulnerable, too. She worked in cement and metals, and pieces like “Centaur’s Laugh” resemble scar tissue stretched over bony armatures. Her forms read as letter-like—“Morris does not write so much as extend the act of writing into air,” the exhibition statement suggests. Yet “Centaur’s Laugh” also registers as a delicate, continual line of movement, gestures mapped and frozen in space.
Bleached, knotted, inked, and slashed, Kennedy’s 2017 textile works drape from dark nails, overlapping to cover an entire wall. The linen hangings are visual palimpsests, telling layered stories of artistic process. They also provide the show’s conceptual scaffolding, holding Kent’s direct prayers and Morris’ metal gestures in a soft, colorful balance.
Another Kennedy work, “Floor Thing” (2016), stretches across the gallery floor, dyed, sprayed, and mysteriously stained. The piece feels like the aftermath of a studio session; Kennedy’s textiles are sites of action and resolved works all at once. An unattributed leather pouch and a handful of rocks rest atop “Floor Thing” like a protective amulet.
Curiously, wide sections of gallery walls are left empty, while several of Kent’s more text-heavy pieces are installed behind a desk in the lobby. The works pull from devotional and pop culture worlds, borrowing lines from 17th-century metaphysical poet Richard Crashaw, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and A Boy Named Charlie Brown.
“The text in that one is really great,” the gallery attendant said as I ducked behind the desk to look at Kent’s “help or something” (1967) more closely. They were right. The piece transcribes poet Gerald Huckaby’s “The Rumored Lovechild,” but its most emphatic proclamations—“Help!… OR SOMETHING” in wavering red, “I LOVE” in bold serif down one side—embody the show’s central ethos. If art is an act of address, or maybe even prayer, then the artist’s work is to reach past themselves—to stretch, gather, and strain toward connection.
IF is on view at Reed College’s Cooley Gallery, 3203 SE Woodstock, Thurs-Sun 12-5 pm through May 17, FREE, reed.edu/cooley.
