2016 Contemporary Northwest Art Awards
Feb 13, 2016 – May 8, 2016
The Museum’s fourth biennial awards exhibition, 2016 Contemporary Northwest Art Awards features eight outstanding artists including a two-person artist’s collaborative. Four of the eight artists are immigrants, coming to the Northwest from Asia and Europe and contributing to the exhibition’s conceptual strength with a fresh view of America. Works in the exhibition address global and regional humanist issues —prejudice, belonging, war, the evolution of power, omnipresent technology, and the environment. Ranging from large-scale installations to intimate ceramic portraits, the multimedia exhibition showcases works in combinations of neon, video, glass, drawing, painting, and clay with innovative approaches to both new and traditional media.At the opening reception one artist will receive the $10,000 Arlene Schnitzer prize selected by the Museum’s curatorial staff. From nomination to final prize, the biennial awards process delivers a two-fold benefit: It allows the Portland Art Museum to identify a number of the Northwest’s exceptional talents, and it provides the museum with a far deeper understanding of the new work taking place in the region by both established and emerging artists. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog, artists’ lectures and other exhibit related programs.Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson, The Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art, and invited curatorial advisor Jessica Hunter-Larsen, curator of IDEA Space, Interdisciplinary Experimental Arts, at Colorado College, received over 200 nominations from respected regional arts professionals of outstanding contemporary artists from Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. Nominees were selected on the basis of quality, innovation, relevance to community or global issues, continuity of vision and dedication to studio practice. Hunter-Larsen and Laing-Malcolmson reviewed the applications to select 24 four finalists, from which the group of seven award winners was chosen.
Organized by the Portland Art Museum and curated by Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson, The Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art.
Using drawing and video, Haven employs words and geometric spatial relationships to illustrate the fragmented bombardment of technology on the human psyche in the new millennium. With language and mixed media, she binds together two- and three-dimensional imagery to create elegant modernist objects that suggest unanswered questions.
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Lead Pencil Studio, Seattle, Washington
Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo use video, sculpture, drawing, installation and photography to reveal spatial qualities of the built environment that influence human behavior. This combination of styles expands the understanding of the constructed surface, which scripts a large portion of human movement and perception.
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Dana Lynn Louis, Portland, Oregon
Louis is inspired by the human body and its connection to timeless and fascinating systems of the natural and constructed worlds—linking time, space, and energy through dynamic multimedia installations. Creating spaces with intimate and large-scale drawings, light projections, and sculptural objects, she uses glass, light, and shadow to achieve a glitteringly magical environment.
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Helen O’Toole, Seattle, Washington
O’Toole creates a prolonged moment where the painting’s vast space evokes an image with a resonating emotional depth. Metaphorically employing the moody landscape of rural Ireland, she channels a deep-seated pain and misery resulting from a past lived amidst a compilation of grudges, suspicion, and violence.
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Akio Takamori, Seattle, Washington
Takamori’s new, 40-foot-long, lyrically painted clay installation addresses the war torn world through the faces of its threatened children. In our contemporary society of a great mix of people, these diverse faces remind us that life begins unblemished by clashing ideologies. Additionally, a series of serene ceramic landscapes quoted from historic Japanese and European paintings provide a hopeful and contemplative view of the natural environment.
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Willem Volkersz, Bozeman, Montana
Volkersz has an immigrant’s fascination with America. Arriving in Seattle from Amsterdam shortly after World War II, he began photographing a newly discovered landscape of billboards, vernacular architecture, and neon signs. Over time, he became fascinated with roadside art and pop culture: larger-than-life advertising figures, postcards, and travel souvenirs. Volkersz creates a charmingly critical narrative around his Dutch heritage and American citizenship.
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Samantha Wall, Portland, Oregon
Wall seeks to communicate the interior emotional state that separates one’s sense of self from their body. Growing up as an ethnically diverse child in South Korea and the American South, she learned to navigate between social and cultural boundaries. Her quietly powerful work utilizes modest materials, such as graphite or charcoal, to build a supple, interlaced texture of marks which are suspended on the surface of paper.
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Please note: This program was originally scheduled for October 1, but has been moved to October 8. We appreciate your flexibility.
During these difficult times, the core competencies of social-emotional learning have taken on added importance: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. These are the skills that will help all of us, students and educators alike, to develop internal resilience and to create community even in a remote learning environment. The arts and creative practices can play an important role in developing these skills and can be integrated into many subject areas. Join us for a workshop to explore connections between arts education and SEL competencies for educators in all disciplines and grade levels.
This online workshop will be facilitated by Carolyn Hazel Drake, Portland Public Schools Visual Arts TOSA; Jonathan Hill, cartoonist, illustrator, and educator; and PAM staff.
Register nowWe will email you the Zoom link in advance of the workshop. Please contact access@pam.org by October 2 with any accessibility requests.
Please review these readings in advance of the workshop.
This is a virtual program and space is limited.
In Dialogue is an occasional series of interdisciplinary, discussion-based sessions that explore art on view at the Museum in relation to works in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. This fall, we will take inspiration from Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott to consider timely and key exhibition themes that explore the dynamics between race and gender, as well as the function of satire within the work. This In Dialogue series is supported by Cheryl and Rena Tonkin, and Marv Tonkin Leasing Company, In Memory of Alan Baron Tonkin.
Facilitated by Dr. Ethan Johnson, this In Dialogue will center discussion around the film, A Question of Color, and the ways in which colorism occurs within the Colescott exhibition. Ethan Johnson is an associate professor in and chair of the Black Studies Department in the School of Gender, Race and Nations at Portland State University. He received his doctorate from the Social and Cultural Studies in Education Program at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published in various journals such as Race, Ethnicity and Education, The International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Souls, Ethnography and Education and The Oregon Historical Quarterly. He has also co-edited the book called Education and the Black Diaspora: Educational Perspectives, Challenges and Prospects.
He works across multiple fields of study related to the experiences of people of African descent: education, popular culture, race and racism, history and African Diaspora Studies. Currently, he is working on a number of projects. One examines the educational experiences of Afro-Latin@s in Spain and the other focuses on the significance of complexion and phenotype in the lives of Black males living in Portland for which he has an article coming out this year. Professor Johnson is the host and organizer of the Black Bag Speaker Series whose mission is to create a space on campus in which scholars and/or activists doing work that relates to people of African descent in Portland and the nation can engage with the university and community.
Reserve ticketsThis is a virtual program and space is limited.
In Dialogue is an occasional series of interdisciplinary, discussion-based sessions that explore art on view at the Museum in relation to works in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. This fall, we will take inspiration from Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott to consider timely and key exhibition themes that explore the dynamics between race and gender, as well as the function of satire within the work. This In Dialogue series is supported by Cheryl and Rena Tonkin, and Marv Tonkin Leasing Company, In Memory of Alan Baron Tonkin.
In an evening of discussion based around improvisational performance with Broke Gravy, this In Dialogue considers the function of satire both within Colescott’s work and within daily life. Broke Gravy uses improv comedy and storytelling to discover truth between the blurry lines of the daily grind.
As three black men living in America, they utilize their unique voices to spark thoughtful conversations on and off comedy stages. Through an open and honest dialogue, they exchange their experiences with those of their audience—exploring deeper perspectives on comedy, relationships, and humanity.
Also, they’re funny AF.
Learn more about Broke Gravy at www.brokegravy.com.
Reserve ticketsThe Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art