Gallery artist Ko Kirk Yamahira has been named the Grand Prize Winner of the Alden Mason Foundation Award. 

Gallery artist Samantha Wall's Boren Banner Series on view at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington.

Russo Lee Gallery is pleased to announce our representation of Whiting Tennis.

Dana Lynn Louis has been named one of ten artists selected for the Oregon Arts Commission's 2024 Visual Artist Fellowship. 

In conjunction with their recent acquisition of Willie Little's twelve Walking Stick, the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota, Duluth will be holding a sculpture installation titled Miles To Go Before I Sleep. 

This solo exhibition celebrates gallery artist Elizabeth Malaska, the winner of the 2022 Betty Bowen Award, SAM’s annual award honoring a Northwest artist for their original, exceptional, and compelling work.

Russo Lee Gallery is pleased to announce our representation of Ka'ila Farrell-Smith.

Every year, SAM and the Betty Bowen Committee give the Betty Bowen Award, a juried award with an unrestricted cash award of $15,000 and a solo exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum. The award was founded in 1977 to continue the legacy of local arts advocate and supporter Betty Bowen and honors a Northwest artist (from Washington, Oregon, or Idaho) for their original, exceptional, and compelling work.

Gallery Artist Brenda Mallory (Cherokee Nation) is featured in the National Gallery of Art's exhibition The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans.

Considering both the presence and absence of Black artists is critical to understanding the breadth of Black artistic production in Oregon—even in the midst of historic exclusion—as well as how the impact of that history affects our understanding of American art history and the history of the Pacific Northwest. This exhibition serves to deepen our awareness of the talented artists who have shaped and inspired artists regionally and nationally, and it will be the first of its kind to consider the work of Black artists collectively in Oregon.

Russo Lee Gallery is pleased to announce our representation of Willie Little. 

Congratulations to gallery artist Lisa Jarrett for being named one of three Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts for 2023. The three artists were selected by a five-person panel, including curators from the Frye, Walker, and Guggenheim museums. 

Featuring Sherrie Wolf's solo exhibition, To InStill Life. On view at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, Oregon.

The exhibition The North Star Changes: Works by Brenda Mallory features sculptures that the artist has made using reclaimed and found objects, some taking the form of large-scale installations. Mallory describes her process as bricolage—something constructed or created from a diverse range of available things. Mallory notes, “The idea that an object has more than one use, more than one life in it, is what appeals to me.”

The Bonnie Bronson Fellowship Fund is pleased to announce that Dana Lynn Louis has been awarded the 2023 Bonnie Bronson Fellowship.

G. Lewis Clevenger's painting Mariposa Grove, from his November 2022 exhibition It's Just My Nature, was recently acquired by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art for their collection.

Geoffrey Pagen's solo exhibition The Portland Years will open March 3 at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art.

The Portland Art Museum recently acquired two pieces from our August exhibitions. A large diptych by Julian V.L. Gaines and an interactive multimedia wall sculpture by Bill Will.

Gabe Fernandez was recently featured on the Oregon Art Beat episode The Secret Life of Familiar Objects.

Yamahira is one of the featured artists in the current exhibition THE THIRD, MEANING: ESTAR(SER) Installs the Frye Collection. The exhibition is on view through October 15, 2023.

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and the Betty Bowen Committee, chaired by Gary Glant, announced today that Portland artist Elizabeth Malaska is the winner of the 2022 Betty Bowen Award. The juried award comes with an unrestricted cash award of $15,000 and a solo exhibition at SAM. Founded in 1977 to continue the legacy of local arts advocate and supporter Betty Bowen, the annual award honors a Northwest artist for their original, exceptional, and compelling work.

Lisa Jarrett was selected for the Joan Mitchell Foundation's artist-in-residence program for 2022.

Curated by Arielle Simmons, this exhibition speaks to the elusive sense of identity in the immigrant experience, integral and unprescribed by a singular homeland. From unique vantage points, their evocative works create tangible realities of emotional complexities.

Every year, SAM and the Betty Bowen Committee give the Betty Bowen Award, a juried award with an unrestricted cash award of $15,000 and a solo exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum. The award was founded in 1977 to continue the legacy of local arts advocate and supporter Betty Bowen and honors a Northwest artist (from Washington, Oregon, or Idaho) for their original, exceptional, and compelling work.

Ideas about the American West, both in popular culture and in commonly accepted historical narratives, are often based on a past that never was, and fail to take into account important events that actually occurred. The exhibition Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea examines the perspectives of 48 modern and contemporary artists who offer a broader and more inclusive view of this region, which too often has been dominated by romanticized myths and Euro-American historical accounts.  

Sherrie Wolf is one of the featured artists in the exhibition The Art of Food: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.

Russo Lee Gallery is pleased to welcome Lisa Jarrett to our roster of represented artists.

A jury of five arts professionals from within and outside of Oregon selected John Houck, Brenda Mallory and Arvie Smith as 2022 Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts from a competitive pool of 175 applicants.

Congratulations to artist Samantha Wall on winning the 2022 Bonnie Bronson Award. The guiding principles are to advance and encourage creative and intellectual growth in a working artist of the Pacific Northwest region, specifically in Oregon or Washington. The award consists of a monetary gift (currently $10,000) and the purchase of the artist’s work for the Bonnie Bronson Collection, which is stewarded by the Cooley Gallery, Reed College, and displayed prominently throughout the Reed campus.

Measuring in at 14-foot by 25-foot, “What Moves Us” is a mural installation consisting of three distinct 7-foot-tall gold bodies in positions that suggest suspension. Each body is ringed by 10 circles that upon closer inspection are portrait heads, all set against a blue and grey gradient background. The mural embodies the transformational power and inspirational force generated through the integrated learning environment at Oregon State University-Cascades’ Edward J. Ray Hall

We are saddened to share that long-time gallery artist Gregory Grenon passed away on February 6, 2022. Gregory made Portland his artistic home from the late 1970s forward and was represented by Russo Lee Gallery and its predecessor The Laura Russo Gallery from 1995 to the present.

Elizabeth Malaska is featured in the exhibition Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts 2017–2019 currently on view at Oregon Contemporary.

Brenda Mallory is featured in GLEAN Retrospective 2010–2021 at Oregon Contemporary. 

We are pleased to announce the monograph Sherrie Wolf: A Retrospective published by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation.

We regret to share that longtime gallery artist Michihiro Kosuge passed away October 13, 2021. Michi had been a fixture in Portland’s art community for decades, and a long time represented artist of The Laura Russo Gallery, now Russo Lee Gallery.

Sherrie Wolf is featured in The Art of Food: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.

This presentation brings together seven artworks—all acquired in 2019 and on view at the Museum for the first time—by a range of local, national, and international artists: Juventino Aranda, Rokni Haerizadeh, Rose Nestler, Mary Ann Peters, Cauleen Smith, Anthony White, and Ko Kirk Yamahira.

The exhibition Up Close & Personal examines the human body through the expressive lens of nearly 60 artists. Some explore the many ways we communicate with one another—through facial expression, body language, self-presentation, and performance. Others boldly envision narratives and representations of the self through the use of their own bodies in their work. Artists are acutely aware that all bodies reside at the dynamic intersection of gender, class, race, sexuality, age, and ability. These compelling portrayals of the figure are situated at these crossroads of identity and point toward countless possibilities for human connection and understanding.

Ko Kirk Yamahira recently installed a large-scale commission for Facebook's Artist In Residence (AIR) Program.

Gallery artists Elizabeth Malaska and Samantha Wall are featured in the exhibition Time Being, curated by Blake Shell at The Oregon Center for Contemporary Art.

Dan Gluibizzi's Together We Follow was recently acquired by the Randall Children's Hospital.

Gallery artist Samantha Wall provided the artwork for Sleater-Kinney's latest album, Path of Wellness, which will be released June 11, 2021

A huge congratulations to Elizabeth Malaska on receiving a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship!

As COVID-19 is preventing us from holding our monthly in-person artist talks, we are now posting video interviews with our exhibiting artists.

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Arlene Schnitzer. Her determined support and enthusiasm is responsible for launching the careers of so many Oregon artists. 

Without her, Russo Lee Gallery would not exist. Laura Russo started her gallery from the legacy of Arlene's Fountain Gallery. Martha Lee continued the gallery, after Laura's passing, on to what is now Russo Lee Gallery. 

In response to rapidly evolving COVID-19-related concerns—and to prioritize the health and safety of our staff, artists, visitors, and neighbors—Russo Lee Gallery is currently open by appointment only. ⁠

Three artists have been selected to participate in the 2019 Artist-in-Residence Program at Glacier National Park. The artists are Amory Abbott, Chad Farnes and Nic Fischer.

The PDX Art Program is honored to present In the Wake, a spectacular ten-panel site-specific installation by acclaimed Portland artist Samantha Wall, currently on view post-security overhead within Concourse D at PDX. These compelling large-scale artworks of ink on Dura-Lar are an exploration into Wall’s family identity, cultural history, and loss. The drawings are inspired by Korean ritual narratives of cleansing and healing and will be on view for one full year, through March of 2020.

The PDX Art Program is pleased to present a truly unique and masterful monotype by Portland artist Kim Osgood, now on view pre-security within North Baggage Claim through September of 2019. Aptly titled Embracing Earth and Sky, this large-scale evocative print embodies and celebrates the iconic geography, flora, and fauna of Portland, Oregon and the surrounding bountiful Pacific Northwest region.

Dana Lynn Louis recently received a Career Opportunity Grant from The Ford Family Foundation for a six-week residency at Thread in Senegal, West Africa, a program and cultural center developed by The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. The program aims to bring together artists from around the world, and within Senegal, to advance their own work and provide the opportunity to collaborate with the regional population to renew artistic practices and facilitate new ideas and artistic endeavors.

The Oregon Arts Commission is excited to announce eight grants made through The Ford Family Foundation’s Art Acquisition Fund, which supports our state’s collecting visual arts institutions, the artists whose work they are able to acquire, and the public who will be guaranteed access to these important works in perpetuity. Funds were awarded by a panel of art professionals to the City of Halsey, Coos Art Museum, High Desert Museum, Portland Art Museum, Portland State University, Reed College, The Schneider Museum of Art, and Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon. 

January 19 – March 31, 2019

Opening in January 2019, Lucinda Parker will be featured in a retrospective exhibition of her work chronicling the last fifty years of her career at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, OR. The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive catalog.

January 19 – May 12, 2019

Gallery artists Jay Backstrand, Cie Goulet, Connie Kiener, Lucinda Parker, and Jan Reaves will be included in this upcoming exhibition at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon in Eugene, OR. The exhibition is organized in conjunction with the George D. Green Art Institute and celebrates recent work by forty-five artists who began their careers in Oregon during the 1960s and 1970s. Focus will be placed on how this generation of artists continues to create art that expands the state’s artistic landscape while upholding their individual style throughout the decades.

This one-year PDX Art Program exhibition will be displayed at the International Concourse Baggage Claim. The exhibition features 10 works from Amory Abbot’s recent series, A Storm Blown From Paradise, created after attending a writing and arts residency on Sherkin Island, Co. Cork, Ireland in May 2018

November 3, 2018 – February 3, 2019

Two of Whitney Nye’s pieces are included in the exhibition A New State of Matter: Contemporary Glass at the Boise Art Museum, which explores glass as an adaptive material that does not fit squarely in any classification of a liquid, solid, or gas.

What a joy to dive into art making with Samantha Wall. Born in Seoul, South Korea, and now living in Portland, Samantha is represented at Russo Lee Gallery, and is courageously and beautifully expressing her life in her drawings. Don't miss this interview! Click the link below to listen.

I first saw Roll Hardy’s work some years ago while sitting at the Produce Row restaurant, located in Portland’s east side waterfront industrial area. The small paintings hung on dark wood walls in a dimly lit room surrounded by deep green booths.

They appeared like windows with views to the surrounding industrial area, each image depicting the nearby aging buildings, train tracks, graffiti-blasted walls and overpasses, rendered with a bold and precise hand.

Lucinda Parker recently completed and installed two large-scale commissioned paintings, Ancient Dance and God Hood, in the public lobby of the new Broadway Tower, located at 1451 SW Broadway, Portland, Oregon. The 19 story tower will be home to the new Radisson Red Hotel, set to open in late November, as well as Amazon offices and additional businesses.

"From Lausanne to Bejing" 10th International Fiber Art Biennale
October 16 – November 15, 2018

Tsinghua University Art Museum, Bejing, China
 

Fabric of Spacetime
October 31– November 25, 2018

Timeless Textiles Gallery, Newcastle NSW, Australia

Gather: Make: Shelter is founded and organized by artist Dana Lynn Louis and is a response to the current housing crisis in Portland. The project culminates in a celebratory public event where the hand-painted bowls will be available for sale and the money raised will be given to local organizations who support urgent housing needs for the upcoming winter.

On Thursday, September 20 at 6:00 p.m., Russo Lee Gallery will be hosting Art Conversations 2018: Collecting Power: Art Agency and Community, an evening of conversation with Samantha Wall, Lisa Jarrett, Melanie Stevens, and Ashley Stull Meyers. 

We are deeply saddened to share the news that Jan Reaves, died Sunday July 29, 2018, from complications related to cancer.

Join artists from a range of disciplines in the galleries for lively conversations about works of art on view at the Museum and how they relate to their own practices. The talks are followed by a complimentary social hour in the museum cafe.

Since 1955, The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation is very proud to have provided financial assistance to over 1800 artists and art students from around the world. The Foundation is a private Canadian foundation that was created and endowed in 1955 by Mr. Charles Glass Greenshields. It provides financial grants of C$15,000 (first grants) and C$18,000 (second and third grants) to students and to artists in the early or developmental stage of their career. The Foundation focuses solely on those who work in a representational style of painting, drawing, sculpture or printmaking. Grants are intended to assist applicants in the study or practice of their art, and the costs associated therewith, such as tuition, studio rental, model fees, travel and living expenses. Eligible courses of study or training include undergraduate, graduate or post-graduate studies and diploma programs from accredited institutions, recognized residencies, apprenticeships/internships and studio training.  

June 2 – September 2, 2018

Kim Osgood was recently included in the exhibition A Decade of Collecting at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, OR. The exhibition celebrated 10 years of collecting and expansion for the museum.

June 4, 2018: The Ford Family Foundation today named its 2018 Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts, recognizing five Oregon visual artists for demonstrated excellence of their work and potential for significant advancement in their practices of art. A jury of five arts professionals selected Avantika Bawa, Demian DinéYazhi’, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, and Elizabeth Malaska of Portland, and Bruce Burris of Corvallis from a diverse pool of over 150 applicants. They each will receive a $25,000 unrestricted award and will join 30 of their peers selected over the last eight years as Hallie Ford Fellows.

May 6 – November 25, 2018
Curated by Eric Fischl

Dan Gluibizzi's work is included in the group exhibition Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros at the Hall Art Foundation in Reading, Vermont. 

James Allen is a Portland Oregon based visual artist that produces wonderfully unique “Book Excavation” sculptures. Allen painstakingly transforms vintage books into sculptures brimming with carefully chosen words, phrases and images. Twenty-three of Allen’s exquisite Book Excavations are currently on view post-security in Concourse A through the PDX Art Program. This outstanding exhibition, appropriately titled Booked, runs through September 9th of 2018.

Join us this Thursday for A Body Full, a performative gesture in response to Elizabeth Malaska's latest exhibition, by Tahni Holt and Luke Wyland. The performance will be followed by a conversation moderated by Meagan Atiyeh of the Oregon Arts Commission. 

This performance is supported by the Regional Arts & Culture Council and the Oregon Arts Commission.

We are pleased to announce Elizabeth Malaska's "Still Life on War Rug" has been acquired by the Portland Art Museum.

A survey of Jo Hamilton's work, with over 50 pieces including some that have never been exhibited, is on view at the Boise Art Museum January 13 – May 13, 2018

The Art Gym presents Symmetry Breaking, featuring eight contemporary visual artists from the Pacific Northwest. This exhibition showcases the work of artists who engage or intersect with craft materials or processes.

Aptly titled Choices, the Museum of Northwest Art presents a survey of artworks by revered Portland-based sculptor Mel Katz.

Dana Lynn Louis

La Grande Robe: A Salutation to the Women of Sinthian

Opening September 22, 5–8 pm

September 22 – November 17

Front Of House Gallery

Jessica Helgerson Interior Design

112 SW 1st Avenue, Portland OR 97204

Join us Saturday, May 13 for artist talks with James Allen and Amory Abbott. They will be discussing the work in their current shows, which are on view through May 27.

Join Caldera for an afternoon of art and conversation with their 2017 Artists in Residence. Experience the power of creativity in the warmth of Caldera's Arts Center while dynamic and diverse artists from various disciplines, as well as students, share their work.

This last Fall-Winter visual artist Dana Lynn Louis spent 9½ weeks traveling to Senegal for Thread, an artist residency sponsored by the Joseph and Anni Albers Foundation. The Alberses—artists from the famed Bauhaus school and refugees from Nazi Germany—spent a lifetime revealing the wonders of color, textiles, and artistic process so that they could be enjoyed across the planet. The Albers Foundation established Le Korsa in 2005 to provide medical care, education, nutrition, and cultural enrichment in some of the poorest and most isolated regions of the world. Louis' sojourn also included a site visit to the Cultural Center Ko-Falen in Mali, West Africa.

We are saddened to learn that Francis Celentano passed away on Sunday, November 20, 2016.

Celentano was one of the original innovators of the Op Art Movement of the 1960s.

A great artist and a gentle soul—he will be missed.

A conversation with Sarah Conley Odenkirk and Linda Tesner

What role do galleries play in creating and maintaining a vibrant art scene and a strong art community? How do galleries benefit both collectors and artists? When you have a myriad of options for purchasing art—online, auction houses and benefit art auctions, straight from an artist’s studio—why should you patronize galleries?

This October we are celebrating 30 years of representing artists from the Pacific Northwest! We're particularly excited about this anniversary as we will be introducing our new name: Russo Lee Gallery. We will also be producing a 106 page catalog to mark this milestone. For the month of October we will be a exhibiting a group show of new work by our gallery artists.

Portland-based 2016 Contemporary Northwest Art Awards winner Samantha Wall was awarded the Arlene Schnitzer Prize.

Story Time: Contemporary Urban Narratives

Len Davis and Roll Hardy

January 6–February 5, 2016

Cannon Gallery hours: M-F 8 am–5 pm or by appointment

The North View Gallery is pleased to announce a group exhibition featuring eight mid-career artists, deeply engaged with pattern and formal repetition in the realization of visually dynamic and structurally complex works. 

The San Juan Islands Museum of Art presents As Above, So Below, a site-specific installation by Portland-based artist Dana Lynn Louis, recipient of the 2016 Contemporary Northwest Art Award. Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson, Curator of Northwest Art at the Portland Art Museum states, “Creating spaces with intimate and large-scale drawings, light projections, and sculptural objects, [Louis] uses glass, light, and shadow to achieve a glitteringly magical environment.”

On Wednesday, November 18th from 6–8 pm, the Laura Russo Gallery will host a screening of the film Lucinda Parker: Water & Clouds. This dynamic film explores Parker's creative process as she makes work for exhibition and two major public commissions over the course of three years. Parker and Michael Annus, the film's producer, will participate in a discussion at the screening.

Please RSVP to the gallery: 503.226.2754 or gallery@laurarusso.com

The Laura Russo Gallery is happy to announce that we are representing Northwest artist G. Lewis Clevenger. Clevenger has been showing his work in Portland since 1978, and will have his first solo exhibition with us in January 2016. Stop by the gallery in November to see one of his newest paintings.

Eric Stotik: Fugue, a survey of the artist's work spanning over 20 years is now on view at the Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery.

Join us on Saturday, September 12th, for artist talks with Rae Mahaffey and Jack Portland. Both artists will be speaking about the work in their current shows at the gallery and answering audience questions. Admission is free, and light refreshements will be served.

Sherrie Wolf: Object Lessons, an exhibition of paintings, prints and other works on paper, will be on exhibit Saturday, Aug. 1, through Oct. 25 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, 700 State St. Wolf juxtaposes exquisitely rendered still-life compositions with Old Master themes. John Olbrantz, Hallie Ford’s director, organized the exhibition.

The Regional Arts & Culture Council recently announced 56 artworks by 39 artists that were added to the Portable Works Collection of smaller scale artworks that rotate through City and County office facilities.

We are pleased that Laura Russo Gallery artists Judith Poxson Fawkes, Fay Jones, Dana Lynn Louis, Jan Reaves, and Samantha Wall were included in their selection!

Congratulations to gallery artists Dana Lynn Louis and Samantha Wall! Both are winners of the 2015 Contemporary Northwest Art Awards presented by the Portland Art Museum. They will be featured in the 2015 Contemporary Northwest Art Awards exhibition opening in October 2015 at the museum.