May 1 First Initial

In unusual opening schedule Ryan McLaughlin brings paintings Saentis Bindle II and Nao Kikuchi brings sculptures Spur.

At Adams and Ollman Gallery, the second of four members of the New Art Dealers Alliance newartdealers.org/members, www.adamsandollman.com 418 NW 8th 5PM-7 Free


Zachary Rau and Chris Sazaki bring PDX<>LAX.

Opening at the Purple Door https://www.thepurpledoorpdx.com/ 3557 SE Division 6PM-9 Free


Initial is a Portland arts writing project. Issue 2 drops tonight. Issue 2 writers are Joy Ulienne Alice, Gus Cannon, Martha Daghlian, Justin Duyao, Leslie Hickey, Midori Hirose, Jaydra Johnson, Brandi Kruse, Bennett Reeves, Ryan-Ashley Anderson, Ben Skiba, and Samantha Yun Wall.

At Nationale www.nationale.us 15 SE 22nd Map 7PM-10 Free


Of course it is Eastside art opening night on the first Friday socials.

April 29 Music from India

Lewis and Clark College has a classical Indian music program. They have an end of semester class performance tonight. Https://college.lclark.edu/fine-arts/calendar/event/370291-indian-music-ensemble-performance in Evans Auditorium at Lewis and Clark College 615 S Palatine Hill Road Map 7PM Free

April 26 Rain Sun Flower Shrine

Lowell pairs artists Shino Takeda and Mohamed Omar for show Rain Sun Flower.

The aesthetic language of Japanese ceramics is deep and wide. I think it would take a lifetime to begin to understand. Growing up, artist Takeda http://shinotakeda.com/home was dipped in it by collector parents. Now in Brooklyn, she brings her response by juxtaposing color in organic patterns on small handbuilts.

I am not sure if Portlander Mohamed Omar was part of Project Grow. But his story is related.

Project Grow was created by artist Natasha Wheat. I would say it was partially inspired by the philosophy of R D Laing.

It was Portland's most beautiful Social Practice artwork. I put Project Grow in the branch of 'socially conscious social practice art.' I would like to see more.

Art is a language of individuals, always evolving and branching. We give bundles of branches names by convenience and habit. One branch is outsider art. It has a longer history in Europe; in the US it came into the gallery system as a reaction of the excesses of 1980s New York.

Project Grow ran alongside Oakland's Creative Growth and similar. Today Portland has Elbow Room, North Pole Studio, PHAME, cotravelers J Pepin, and more projects that never went to art school.

Omar brings paintings from his work at Elbow Room https://www.elbowroompdx.org/. He is a musician too, with tapes available at the gallery.

Add, Hospitality House in SF has an overlapping community of artists. Portland participates with similar projects P:ear and Dana Lynn Louis' Gather:Make:Shelter.

At Lowell https://www.lowellshopgallery.com/ 2136 E Burnside 3PM-5 Free


Shrine 13 is a Portland creative releasing project in film, print, and with events. It is Jessica Daugherty and Brad Hamers. One project is archiving the life work of Beryl Sokoloff and Crista Grauer, life partner artists in New York.

They show some tonight in program The Galatea Effect, Or How to Live Forever: The Films, and Love, of Beryl Sokoloff and Crista Grauer. It is eloquently explained on their link.

It's https://www.boathousemicrocinema.com/apr-26-2026/ at the Boathouse Microcinema www.boathousemicrocinema.com 822 N River Doors 7:30PM movie 8 Free

April 25 Intimate Music Self

Kimberly Gronquist forms Intimate Monads, organic ceramic sculptures.

They win the copywriting award for the month. "A word like monad risks sounding grandiose until you stand in front of one of Gronquist’s sculptures and feel the term settle. Borrowed from Leibnizian symbolic logic, it names the smallest indivisible unit of being, a self-contained world. In this way Gronquist’s works conduct a small cosmos pressed into clay. Each object existing solitary, self-possessed, while simultaneously conversing quietly across the gallery, forming a loose ecology of presences.

Originating in touch the clay bears evidence of fingers, gravity, pressure, and air forming a material history of the gestures that shaped it. These deliberate and discovered arrangements that seem grown rather than constructed. The process reveals almost like a form of thinking, or an embodied cognition in which ideas are not depicted but coaxed out of matter.

The shifting scale and intimacy of the sculptures keep them close to the body. Each one holds a small interior drama of time: a vessel formed slowly through attention, then fixed by fire. Psychologist Laura L. Carstensen’s notion of “time horizons”—the way human perception of time shapes our priorities, hovers in the background. These ceramics feel oddly liberated from time even as they record it.

Gronquist describes the work as an investigation into the porous boundary between inner consciousness and the world that forms it. The idea sounds philosophical, but the sculptures communicate it plainly. Their surfaces look weathered by encounter. They materially imply that identity like clay is made through the contact of touch, environment, attention, and relationships.

There is also a quiet defiance running through the exhibition. The work honors sovereign interiority over the social demand to appear legible or productive. They embrace beauty, excess, and vulnerability with a seriousness, as Gronquist leans into those qualities despite the history of them being dismissed as indulgent. What could be read as softness becomes strength; what looks fragile reveals a stubborn independence to exist among the chaos.

One line lingers as a fitting epigraph for the show: “We are two abysses—a well staring up at the sky.” The phrase captures the mood of these objects. Each sculpture seems to look inward and outward at once, holding a private depth while opening toward something larger, formed, sustained, and continually remade through our encounters with the world and with one another."

At at SE Cooper Contemprary, with family-friendly openings, https://www.secoopercontemporary.com/ 6901 SE 110th Map 1PM-4 Free


Patricia Wolf is an accomplished musician, promoter, patch developer and composer. Her branch is electronic field recording ambient. She has hosted showings at Mono Space of movie Hrafnamynd https://vimeo.com/828149745, an abstract documentary she scored.

This afternoon she is the selector for a listening session.

"Maurice Ravel to Ryuichi Sakamoto, Hildegard Westerkamp to Roméo Poirier, Mel Bonis to Elizabeth Maconchy."

https://mono-space.org/blogs/events/gallery-hours-curated-by-patricia-wolf at Mono Space https://mono-space.org/ 608 NW 13th Ave Ste 102. Noon-5 Free


How am I not myself? is a curated selection of 30 self portraits.

At Well on Earth 115 NE Lawrence Ste 111 5PM-9 Free


Volunteer-operated Kalakendra presents classical Indian music concerts. It is a pleasure to experience them. Tonight Ganesh-Kumaresh plays carnatic violin with Patri Satish Kumar, mridangam, and Trichy Krishnaswamy, ghatam, in an instrumental program.

At the First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park. 7PM $35, youth age 3-12 $15, students with ID $20

April 24 Poem Gamelan

The Indonesian archipelago is larger than the US West to East and about 3/4 extent South to North. It is 4th in world population after the US, ethnically diverse. Diverse in music, too. One branch is gamelan music. That has more branches.

The gamelan is a collection of percussion instruments up to about 50 instrument types. They range from small instruments with the ring of bells to large gongs with a shimmer sustain, drums, and add strings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQNxGnQ1Wns

Today, with an afternoon free you can hear the Lewis and Clark College gamelan class readout, free. The L&C art department thesis show is up in the Hoffman too.

Javanese Gamelan Ensemble https://www.lclark.edu/calendars/events/event/388092-javanese-gamelan-ensemble in Evans Music Center’s World Music Room (room 036) 2PM Free


The sea of poetry readings ebbs and flows. I'm not that deep in that world, but Im sensing it flowing. One itinerant project is Poems at Sunset out a Window. They received an opportunity to expand and tonight do Poems out of a Print Shop. At the IPRC 318 SE Main. Readings 7:25PM, 7:45, 8:10 Free

April 18 Fuck Thesis Moss Formailities

Gareth James and David Joselit bring Late Night Legal Formalities. Society has a strong interest in word-based art.

"2026 marks the 20th anniversary of Late Night Legal Formalities, originally produced for the Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York. LNLF was devised by James as a way of negotiating Dee’s request for him to join her commercial gallery. Prior to his first exhibition, Dee agreed to hire an art historian or critic to attend every exhibition during 2005 and to write an essay, for a fee of $1 a word, over which the gallery would have no editorial control, and which James would subsequently present in the September exhibition of the following year as his first exhibition. David Joselit lobbed a strikingly candid response back to James who incorporated it into the work on view."

At https://societysocietysociety.com/ 711 SE Grand upstairs above Mother Foucault’s. 7PM-9 Free


The thesis show season commences.

PNCA Visual Studies and Print Media launch theirs tonight. Two locations.

At at Stelo Arts https://www.steloarts.org 412 NW 8th 5PM-8 Free

At NW Marine Art Works https://www.nwmarineartworks.com/ Building5 https://www.buildingfive.org/ 2516 NW 29th 5PM-8 Free


One Grand Gallery has several audiences. They are a member of PADA. They have also opened their attic to events. Tonight is the Fuck ICE show benefitting the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition. The upstairs shows are very popular social art, DJ, and beer events.

At One Grand Gallery www.onegrandgallery.com 1000 E Burnside 6PM-10 Free


Noa Ver, one half of electronic duo Sea Moss, curates an afternoon listening session. Sea Moss is an aggressive sound electronic duo, the opposite of Moss Wand.

At Mono Space https://mono-space.org/ 608 NW 13th Ave Ste 102. Noon-5 Free

April 16 Neptune Frost

Our nighttime weather is trying to tell the plants not yet.

Atelier Yafe hosts a showing of Neptune Frost, a dystopian Afrofuturism musical involving hackers. It was filmed in Rwanda and released in 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acfBNIXovww

Included in the evening is a discussion of Portland mapping in the service of community placemaking.

This month is the 32nd aniversery of the Rwandan Genocide, still playing out today in warlord control of mining in Eastern Congo, with factions funded by Rwanda. The Portland Rwandan community has events.

At Atelier Yaffe https://www.atelieryaffe.com/ 111 NE Martin Luther King Blvd, enter on Couch 6:30-9 Free

April 11 Small Animals

Lily Seika Jones https://www.lilyseikajones.com/ brings narrative illustrations of creatures.

https://www.nucleusportland.com/blogs/future-exhibitions/jones2026 http://www.nucleusportland.com 2916 NE Alberta 4PM-6 Free

April 11- 12 Peddling Synths

The Synth and Pedal show is back with an admission price this year. It's https://synthandpedalexpo.com/portland-synth-pedal-expo/. 819 SE Taylor $5-20

April 10 Distance

I am the distance is paintings by Colorado-based artists, Marius Lehene + Aitor Lajarin-Encin.

At After/Time Collective https://www.aftertimecollective 735 SW 9th Ave #110 5PM-8 Free

April 5 - 2026-2027 Never Sorry

Ai Weiwei is an artist we follow. His autobiography 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows tells some of his story. He was born in 1957. Because of his father's politics, he lived in poor conditions. After he was part of an art opening generation in Beijing, which then quickly closed. Then he lived in New York City between 1981 - 1993. He was a street photographer in NYC, including the Tompkins Square Park police riot and AIDS protests. Since his New York experience, politics and (the lack of) justice has run through his work.

In 2010, The late Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft brought a traveling show Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn (Ceramic Works, 5000 BCE – 2010 CE). Weiwei's father had been an antiques dealer and the son has used antiques and Chinese history as a visual, emotional, and conceptual carrier in many of his works.

Of about 10,000 New York City images, 227 were shown at the Asia Society and published as a book in 2011 around the time of his release from being disappeared in China for 81 days. https://gailpellettproductions.com/ai-weiwei-new-york-1983-1993/

In 2012, the Portland Art Museum brought Allison Klayman's documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. She is an excellent person and filmmaker to watch. That includes her The Brink on Steve Bannon. I recommend any Weiwei documentary and his own vidio projects. Never Sorry is around but may be hard to find free with English subtitles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBWCqFHjqIw

In 2015, the Portland Art Museum brought Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads: Gold. Weiwei has created several interpretations of this reprise of famous sculptures stolen from China in 1860. https://archive.orartswatch.org/ai-weiwei-interprets-the-zodiac-for-you/ https://www.pdxmonthly.com/arts-and-culture/2015/05/bring-us-the-heads-of-ai-weiwei-may-2015

Lately Weiwei has focused his lens on refugees of wars of choice in the Middle East. He has also been in Ukraine.

The Seattle Art Museum brought a large retrospective in 2025.

Now opens Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (2010) in bronze at the Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park. It's up for a while and the Olympic Sculpture Park is always free. Ai WeiWei https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/whats-on/exhibitions/ai-weiwei-circle-of-animals-zodiac-heads at the Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park 2901 Western Avenue Map Free

April 4 Northside Openings+

Today some winged feet would be useful with many happenings.


False Front continues. The Westside galleries are open 11-noon to 5 for echo openings.


For your +1, Westside, The Schnitzer collection is a vast archive of mostly multiples. They assemble vast shows from that. What's Not to Love is primarily portraits, local, national, and international. They have a large show of David Hockney at the Portland Art Museum too.

At the Schnitzer Family Collection https://jordanschnitzer.org/exhibitions/whats-not-to-love 3033 NW Yeon Noon-6 Free


For your +2, Westside, Nathan William Lambdin makes polychrome geometric wood sculptures.They are two and a half dimension intended for walls.

At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 1825 NW Vaughn Map 3PM-5 Free RSVP by email to info at pdxcontemporaryart.com


Umico Niwa https://www.umiconiwa.com brings her framed journal drawings. Her theme is her trans journey in show titled The disappearance of my testicles, and other such mysteries regarding motherhood. More including her bio is https://ily2online.com/exhibitions/umico. Good addition to the gallery.

At I Love You 2 - ILY2 https://ily2online.com/ 925 NW Flanders 1PM-3 Free


Oregon Contemporary opens their biennial. Artists are Sahar al-Sawaf, Raphael Arar, Wayne Bund, Francesca Capone, Hand2Mouth Theatre, Kerr Cirilo, DeepTime Collective: Amanda Leigh Evans and Tia Kramer, Demian DinéYazhi’, James Enos, Tannaz Farsi, Marcelo Fontana, Ebony Frison, The Black Gallery & Don't Shoot PDX: Taishona Carpenter and Teressa Raiford, Bean Gilsdorf, Stephen Hayes, Jaleesa Johnston, Joe Kye, Ambrin Ling, Katherine Longstreth, Todd McGrain, Mako Miyamoto, Anis Mojgani, Gabby Severson, Stephen Slappe, Ash Stone, and Taravat Talepasand.

At 6, Fifty Clocks Made To Strike Together is a performance by DeepTime Collective, Amanda Leigh Evans and Tia Kramer. Followed by a talk by the curator, TK Smith. The performance requires earplugs which will be available.

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


Nationale shows Oh Deeear Mee by Amy Bay.

"Many of the paintings begin with simple flower-like shapes that gather within crowded fields. Bay draws loosely from historical decorative sources—particularly French domino papers and early English wallpapers—but treats patterns as flexible rather than fixed. The compositions move between ornamentation, landscape, and abstraction, while suggesting social arrangements that take on a sense of companionship."

At Nationale www.nationale.us 15 SE 22nd Map 2PM-4 Free


A new photography gallery and darkroom, Franklin Foto, opens Maydays by Steve Rockoff, imaged on the streets in Dublin County, May 2024 and 2025. At Franklin Foto https://www.franklinfoto.org/ 8953 N Lombard 5PM-8 Free


Garth Amundson and Pierre Gour bring Born Remembering, geometric collage. They are faculty at WWU in Bellingham.

At Well Well Projects www.wellwellprojects.com in the Disjecta building 8371 N. Interstate Map  5PM-8 Free


Ben Skiba brings ceramic sculpture Notch for the Heart. It opened yesterday and may be open tonight.

At www.carnationcontemporary.com in the Disjecta building 8371 N Interstate. 5PM-8 Free

April 3 Eastside Art Openings

Jason Hill and Françoise Weeks bring photographic portraists, the Living Frame. The art is in the props and backdrops. Those include artist-made picture frames held by the models, and artist-made props, both from botanical artist Françoise Weeks. https://www.francoiseweeks.com/ Art and editorial photographer Jason Hill stretches out on the art side with this project. https://jasonhillphoto.com/ One of the models is Portlnd Musicial Esperanza Spalding.

At Souvenir Gallery https://souvenirartspdx.org/ 1233 NE Alberta 5PM-8 Free


New Riso shop and gallery, Riso Studio Arts, brings Kiko Bordeos https://kikobordeos.com/ and Alexis Gallo https://alexisgallo.com/ all the way from Brooklyn for show Keepsakes. They are bright abstracts.

At Riso Studio Arts https://pdx.risostudioarts.com/ 1327 SE Division 5PM-8 Free


Zhanna Tsytsyn https://www.zhannatsytsyn.com/ brings Where Roots Refuse Borders. Her work is colorful schemantic painting. Born in Siberia and growing up in Siberia and the Georgia, the republic/now country, some of her work is inspired by Siberian shamans. She now resides in Vancouver, Washington,

At One Grand Gallery www.onegrandgallery.com 1000 E Burnside 6PM-9 Free


All the Eastside events are at http://firstfridaypdx.org/ and their socials which list many shows and their times.

April 2 Westside Art Openings

Leach, Writers' Block, The Black Gallery, Laura Vincent Design, and Adams and Ollman continue.


For your +1, The Portland Art Museum free all day. There is a talk about Mark Rothko at 10:30AM which you get tickets for as part of the free admission. https://portlandartmuseum.org/event/free-first-thursday-april2026/ at the Portland Art Museum 1219 SW Park 10AM-7 Free


For your +2 in Northeast. You can experience Flamenco music with guitarist Brenna McDonald and guitarist/vocalist Yeshe Wingerd. A project of Espacio Flamenco, it repeats on first Thursdays. At Bar Botellón 606 NE Davis 7PM-9 Free


For your +3, anytime. Is the news getting you down? Try a break with Slow TV, a broad genre with many stories. https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2026-03-12/slow-tv-jackie-shadow-eagles-nature-livestream-big-bear


Boiler Room, Steelhead, and Just Enough is a retrospective show by the late Tom Prochaska. Recommended.

At Froelick Gallery www.froelickgallery.com 714 NW Davis early close 5PM-8 Free


Frank Stella (1936–2024) was known for his minimalist works, and he also produced colorful maximalist paintings and even sculptures. He was a champion of artist rights represented in french law as Droit de Suite, which never caught on in US intellectual property law. He was an avid racquet player and performed in Reuschenberg's Open Score with otehr creatives in the 1966 E.A.T. project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlZFYnnnn7U. This show is of prints spanning both bodies of work.

At Augen Gallery www.augengallery.com 716 NW Davis 5PM-7:45 Free


Blue Sky has 50 photographers from the Critical Mass program, and one solo from it, Elliot Ross.

Dream: ... Dream: ... Another dream: … are handwritten records of 50 dreams by Linda Hutchins.

"Irregular script and scribbled redactions blur the distinction between writing and drawing, continuing the artist’s long-running investigation of the formal and metaphorical potential of line as a visual element."

There will be an artist talk Saturday May 2, 11AM

At Blue Sky Gallery www.blueskygallery.org Map 122 NW 8th 5PM-9 Free


Fans Only shows its residents and guests.

At Fans Only https://www.fansonly.studio/ 1010 SW 11th 5PM-8 Free


Painters Joel Briggs bring In St. John’s Shadow, Natasha Ramras brings Totem 2, and Faith Emerson brings Meyer.

At the Portland Arts Collective https://www.portlandartscollective.org/ 122 NW Couch 6PM-9 Free


Jana Demartini has landscapes Dancing With Trees, Pomegranate Doyle has Circe, Circle, Circus, Justin Auld has Address Label Mandalas,

All at Blackfish Gallery https://www.blackfish.com/ 938 NW Everett Map 5PM-8 Early Close Free



Gabe Fernandez has photorealistic interior and exterior landscape paintings.

At Laura Russo Lee Gallery www.russoleegallery.com 805 NW 21st 5PM-7 Early Close Free


Quiet is a show of impresionistic mixed-media encaustic landscape paintings by Erika James.

At Waterstone Gallery www.waterstonegallery.com 124 NW 9th 5PM-8 Free


PNCA Willamette has many visual shows tonight. They are hosting a printed matter show too. And they are recruting California Collage of the Arts refugees on the occasion of its closure.

At PNCA | Willamette University www.pnca.willamette.edu 511 NW Broadway Map 5PM-8 Free