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Couture con Carne

With raw talent and raw meat, photographer Pinar Yolacan considers beauty and the aging process.

Visual Arts Pinar Yolacan has been an art-world wunderkind since the age of 16, when in 1997 her art was featured in the Turkish edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. Now 24, Yolacan has maintained that knack for gen ... More

Wednesday, March 2, 2005 RICHARD SPEER

Dressing Demise

Matthew Picton outfits destruction and decay in Day-Glo finery

Visual Arts "Let us recognize the fact once and for all�," wrote Piet Mondrian in 1920. "If you follow nature, you will not be able to vanquish the tragic in your art." The great neoplasticist saw the processes o ... More

Wednesday, February 9, 2005 RICHARD SPEER

Heroine Chic

Miss Mona Superhero tapes her way into fabulousness.

Visual Arts "Twenty-six days," Mona Superhero says to me in the bar at clarklewis, as we down the first of several screwdrivers."Huh?"She reaches up to her neck, pulls down her pink coat and rock-band tee, and fl ... More

Wednesday, February 9, 2005 RICHARD SPEER

OFF the RECORD

When the questions get tough, the artists get cold feet.

Visual Arts What artists say off the record is usually a lot more telling than what they say on the record. There's something about a reporter's notepad or tape recorder that can tighten the lips of even the loos ... More

Wednesday, January 5, 2005 RICHARD SPEER

Miami Art, Miami Vice

Portland art stars take the beach.

Visual Arts There's nothing like a jaunt to Miami to revivify sun-starved Stumptowners. Happily, the third annual Art Basel Miami Beach (Dec. 2-5) afforded a cadre of Portland's art trendsetters the opportunity t ... More

Wednesday, December 15, 2004 RICHARD SPEER

Going for Gold

Nancy Azara conjures a gilded world.

Visual Arts In some respects, what you look for in art is the same thing you look for in a good massage. You don't go for a massage in the mindset that some white-robed clinician is going to dispassionately manip ... More

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 RICHARD SPEER

An AFFAIR to Remember

Stuart Horodner reinvents the concept of hotel art.

Visual Arts Wonderfully executed if poorly publicized by former PICA visual arts curator Stuart Horodner, AFFAIR at the Jupiter Hotel brought Portland's art scenesters out of the woodwork last Friday night and di ... More

Wednesday, October 6, 2004 RICHARD SPEER

The Mark of the Arrow

An enigmatic street artist makes his statements from...above.

Visual Arts A few weeks ago, Portland quietly acquired its very own Zorro: a self-proclaimed "street activist" who revels in anonymity and leaves a telltale mark. In this case, it's not a slashed "Z," but a brigh ... More

Wednesday, September 1, 2004 Mary Ann Albright

Something from Nothing

Painter Lauren Mantecón tours the void--and finds its silver lining.

Visual Arts Lauren Mantecón is in her studio, sipping rum and talking very intensely about the things she likes to talk about--art, gender, feminism, beauty--when, at the end of a phrase, as if to punctuat ... More

Wednesday, September 1, 2004 RICHARD SPEER

Snore Ample

A new catalog chronicles one of the most important art extravaganzas ever to anesthetize Portland.

Visual Arts In case you slept through it, Core Sample was an art happening last October that packed two dozen exhibitions, featuring work by 140 regional artists, into a 10-day festival. Oregonian architecture cr ... More

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 RICHARD SPEER