Group Art Event ‘The Dog Days Show’ Is Back and Here to Party

One of Portland’s buzziest recurring one-night-only group art shows returns Aug. 29 with a new theme: The Dog Days Show. And Sakura Chino, Finn Donnelly and Buck Chapman, the show’s organizers, are at the center of its world.

For this iteration, 22 local artists will display and sell pieces from 6 to 10 pm at the makeshift industrial venue The Plink Room at the corner of Southeast 19th Avenue and Belmont Street. The featured artists—selected by the trio—sculpted, painted and printed their individual interpretations of the “dog days” theme. Previous show themes have included The Smoke Show in June, The House Show in February, and The Junk Show last summer.

Outside of the art, Bare Knuckles, a local streetwear-esque clothing brand, is sponsoring the event, offering an exclusive graphic printed on the company’s shirts. Vietnamese vinyl bar After Ours will serve food, and natural wine shop Ardor will pour glasses. And, as the event’s signature, there will be free beer.

At The Smoke Show, black cutouts of cowboys, gym bros and pin-up girls lined the walls of the narrow room on Belmont, dubbed “The Plink Room.” A makeshift restaurant outside—two guys, two grills, a few coolers, and plastic containers of ingredients set out on folding tables—served burgers in paper food boats.

The crowd, sporting jorts, camo hats and overly designed T-shirts, looked more like the line for a Snow Strippers concert than a typical gallery opening. After taking a lap through the 50-plus artists on display, most opted to stand right outside of the Belmont venue’s garage door, drinking free Rainiers and smoking $1 cigarettes from the merch table. A DJ inside, spinning vinyl and also smoking, soundtracked the evening.

The events, while initially centered on the art itself, are free and open to anyone, but feel more like a 20-something’s house party than a gallery opening by design. Chapman says he wants the shows to feel approachable, even for people who don’t feel like they’re necessarily part of the art world.

“Everyone’s got a way in, whether you’re selling or displaying art, or helping us out ahead of time, or cooking hamburgers,” Donnelly says. “We don’t even really have a name for the art shows themselves. I feel like that represents the pace that we’re on.”

While some of the artists on display have worked within Portland’s art scene for years, for others the shows can be an artist’s first time ever having their work publicly shown or, in some cases, their first sale.

At The Smoke Show, Americana tattoo flash, ashtrays and thick smoke plumes were plentiful. Painted portraits of cigarette boxes, such as one by Spencer Winans, adorned the walls. A quilted square by Haley McCarter showed two hands, rolling a fabric joint. One artist, Jaimie Phillips, painted a Wile E. Coyote scene on a ceramic vase with cartoonish firecrackers sticking out of the top.

Even though the art show originally started in 2023 as an intern project for Nemo Design, the marketing firm located right upstairs, the venue’s location is completely coincidental. After branching away from Nemo, as the project evolved and grew, the venues often came from friends’ generosity rather than official partnership.

“We’ve always kind of leaned into the DIY-ness of it,” Chino says. Some of the past spaces, garages and warehouses, had quirks to work around, the organizers say, like holes in the floor or no restroom for attendees.

While the rejection of the traditional gallery structure comes in part from feelings of not belonging, it also comes from a lack of budget. Between three years of shows, “we’re pretty much rounding out at a nice zero dollars in profit total,” Donnelly says. All money made, whether from T-shirt sales or the small cut from art sold, is reinvested back into throwing the next show.

“We really are not profit-driven at all. And whatever money we spend, we don’t necessarily expect to make it back,” Chino says. “As long as we’re fine with eating the cost of some things, then we can kind of do whatever we want within our own imagination.”

GO: The Dog Days Show at The Plink Room, 1875 SE Belmont St., instagram.com/the_________show. 6–10 pm Saturday, Aug. 29. Free. 21+.