Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Mariah Green, Vanessa Perez Winder, Jas Keimig, and Sam Wrigglesworth pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Ebenezer Galluzzo: As a Home Changes
Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR
January 4 to January 27
In a political landscape that often deems queer and trans folks as immoral or unnatural, As a Home Changes reflects Galluzzo’s assertion of his trans self as natural and inherent to the ecology around him.
Galluzo began work connecting the body to the coastal landscape in Oregon through self-portraiture in 2020—a year that marked a large uptick in anti-trans legislation that has regretfully continued. In the following years his work directly engaged the discomfort of land/embodiment and its representations: cutting of the self in collage, blistered skin after poison oak, and broken mirrors as a repeated visual device. Partly celebratory and wholly honest, this exhibition offers a personal reflection on what it means to inhabit one’s self.
Reflection: What helps you feel at most ease with your surroundings?
Words as Witnesss: the language of political struggle
Hurriyyah Collective, Portland, OR
January 28
Presented by the local grassroots Muslim-led Hurriyyah Collective, this workshop aims to clarify our collective responsibility in regards to language. With a focus on working towards a free Palestine, participants will study examples of writings from freedom struggles including the Palestinian Liberation Movement to contextualize the important roles of poets and artists. Prompts will guide writers towards working on their own practice with shared goals in mind. The workshop will also unpack the ways language is manipulated to undermine Palestinian sovereignty so that we can maintain precision and clarity.
Reflection: When was the last time a piece of writing convinced you of something new, or spurred you into action?
Pace Taylor: Before the Doors Open
Nationale, Portland, OR
January 15 to February 18
Looking at Pace Taylor’s work almost always causes me to slow down and take a deep breath. Known for utilizing graphite and layered soft pastels, what is often deemed a particularly unruly material, Taylor tends to focus on quieter forms of intimacy and exchange.
In their third solo exhibition with Nationale, Before the Doors Open, Taylor presents larger framed paintings as well as smaller watercolors drawing inspiration from literature to reflect on their own internal experience of isolation and agoraphobia. Domestic elements in the compositions—door frames, entry ways, partially closed curtains—create gentle tension between interiority and exteriority, revealing and protecting. The subjects presented have a rich inner world of which we can only look in to understand part of.
Reflection: In what ways do you practice intimacy with yourself and the people around you?