The Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Northwest Art Awards Exhibition just opened, and it’s a must-see. Eight artists from the Northwest region were hand picked by NW art curator, Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson, to make up this show of diverse talent. They are: Victoria Haven, Helen O-Toole, Dana Louis, Akio Takamori, Samantha Wall, Willem Volkersz, and Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo of Lead Pencil Studio.

I went to the opening last week and took these photos of the pieces that moved me the most.

Samantha Wall uses charcoal, graphite, conté crayon, and ink to create large, beautiful, female silhouettes that have a haunting quality to them. I had to really get up close to see all the fine details of hair and subtle shadowing.

Dana Louis created two installation spaces that were absolutely stunning. She hand painted much of the wall space with her signature drawing style and included some amazing glass sculptures as counterpoint. If you can, you should also visit the museum at night to see her light installation in the museum’s courtyard.

Akio Takamori paints on stoneware and porcelain. I particularly loved his piece entitled, Children.

Helen O-Toole paints large, evocative, abstract landscapes. Her use of color is finely tuned and complex.

Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo of Lead Pencil Studio created a variety of pieces from large scale pencil drawings to free-standing sculpture, but the piece that intrigued me most was their piece entitled, Crystal Fragments, miniature glass etchings of street scenes and small objects encased in separate glass blocks. I didn’t manage to get a photo during the opening, but here is a photo taken from the exhibition catalogue. (this piece looks big in the photo, but it’s really quite tiny)

The show is up through May 8 – plenty of time to make your way to the museum to check it out.