August 8 Coming: Becoming, Be Here Now

Barry Johnson, from Federal Way, Washington, opens a show of portraits, Becoming. 

At www.nationale.us 15 SE 22nd Map 1PM-3 Free RSVP requested masks required

August 7 ¡Viva Vivas!

Joy Feasley, Lee M. Hale, Maya Vivas have a group show of abstract paintings, bronze sculptures of plant thorns, and abstract organic shape ceramic sculptures, respectively.

Late career artist Kinke Kooi from the Netherlands has The Grotesk of Raising. It's a mixture of abstract and surreal with a Miami nights palette and forms complementary to Vivas' work.

At Adams and Ollman Gallery, the second of two members of the New Art Dealers Alliance www.newartdealers.org, www.adamsandollman.com 418 NW 8th 11PM-2 Free



A Sometimes Gallery has a colorful show of primarily 2d work, Summer. At a Sometimes Gallery 687 N Tillamook St. Ste C 4PM-8 Free masked and vaxed



Jessie Weitzel Le Grand has a strange and beautiful series of sculptures Limbo Lounge.

The work comes with the copyrighting award of the month, very Invisible Cities.

The works are the "peculiar creations by the citizens of Ny By. Imagined as a potential afterlife or alternate dimension, Ny By is a place governed by rules unlike our own. Le Grand’s sculptures capture the objects and arrangements its citizens celebrate. Each artifact reveals more about this constructed reality you may never see yourself. 

Ny By is a town. Not a town of this world, but another. In Ny By, citizens worship blossoms and sandwiches. They pull threads from the soil and collect geodes on the shore. Life here is a mystery. There is no language, no laws, and no existential crises. Each life form is unique, funny, and content."

At Stephanie Chefas Projects www.stephaniechefas.com 305 SE 3rd Ave #202 - the City Sign Building, formerly a low cost artist space Map. Free 1PM-6 Free masks and social distancing

The Oregon Center for Contemporary Art, nee Disjecta, has a closing reception. It is the show Time Being, curated by Blake Shell, and well worth seeing if you have not yet. It includes ceramic sculptures by Maya Vivas, cofounder of Ori Gallery. It is Maya Vivas month with work at A+O, Eutectic, the Fourteen30 house show in Aurora, and here. 

At 8pm, Maya Vivas will perform A Comlicated Remedy to my Soft Hands.

The adjacent galleries, always recommended, Carnation Contemporary and Well Well are open too. 

At the Oregon Center for Contemporary Art, in the shadow of Paul Bunyan  www.oregoncontemporary.org 8371 N. Interstate Map 5PM-8 Free

August 5 Westside Art Openings

We thought being vaccinated everything would be back to normal in person. But some galleries are still virtual or require masks.


Blue Sky has a survey of the Ingeborg Gerdes. She was a German American photographer making landscape and streetscape work in the Western US. 

Enfant Terrible Bill Will is back in the Nine space, aways recommended.

At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org 122 NW 8th Map 6PM-8 Free


The Stumptown Fellowship is back with paintings by Michelle Ramin in her series Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea. It's oils, loosely themed on the trauma of our BLM realizations, climate, and pandemic. I predict as we process our reckoning, an accompanying exploration of our experience with first arrivers will emerge.

At Stumptown www.stumptowncoffee.com 128 SW 3rd 5PM-7 Free

Monuments and Memorials by Dinh Q. Lê opens tonight at Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Lê's approach of weaving two photographs never tires. This show mixes samples of Cambodia. It is visually pleasing, but heavy matters hide in it. Lonnie Holley has The Influence of Images there too. At Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th Map As far as we can tell, they are doing a YouTube opening only at 6.

Galleries often observe the dog days of August and mount group shows. It is unknown which are open tonight. PDX Contemporary has Walking, Augen has a group show and Froelick has a group show.