On monstrous beauty: Victoria Dugger interviewed
Athens-based Victoria Dugger talks about her relationship to the grotesque and beauty as a disabled Black woman in the South.
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We publish fearless, rigorous, accessible writing about West Coast art and culture.
On monstrous beauty: Victoria Dugger interviewed
Athens-based Victoria Dugger talks about her relationship to the grotesque and beauty as a disabled Black woman in the South.
An echo chamber called Earth: Laura Camila Medina interviewed
On the occasion of their respective solo exhibitions in Portland and Austin, Lauren Klotzman and Laura Camila Medina sat down to discuss display technologies, watermedia, and our planetary echo chamber.
Heirloomed pleasure as self-examination: Louise Bourgeois and Isabelle Albuquerque at lumber room in Portland, OR
An two person show explores the narrative women's bodies hold.
Interiors and exteriors: Black life and the archive
A group exhibition in Seattle showcases the complexity and duality of identity present both in the exteriors and interiors of Black life.
Artist Questionnaire: Chloe King
We talked with Oakland-based Chloe King about friction in materials, Black and Queer visual culture, surviving cancer, and letting work become vulnerable.
Artist Questionnaire: Yuwei Tu
Yuwei Tu answers our questionnaire in conjunction with the group show Fire and Life at Charlotte Call Gallery in Los Angeles.
You are the space between: Joe Park at Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, OR
Intricate paintings explore a world where energy and matter are porous and fluid.
Celebrating art & community: on Wa Na Wari’s ‘Walk the Block’ event
This year's Walk the Block celebrates Seattle's Black art, culture, and community.
Artist Questionnaire: Freddie Robins
We’re partnering with Portland Institute of Contemporary Art to profile artists in their 2025 TBA festival. Next up, Essex and London-based Freddie Robins.
Artist Questionnaire: Dao Strom
We’re partnering with Portland Institute of Contemporary Art to profile artists in their 2025 TBA festival. Next up, Portland-based Dao Strom.
Love Letter to Anthony White
It’s hard not to call Anthony White a painter. He masterfully composes opulent still life paintings of mass-produced objects and icons, evoking sensations of nostalgia and guilt.
Artist Questionnaire: Drama Tops
We’re partnering with Portland Institute of Contemporary Art to profile artists in their 2025 TBA festival. Next up, Seattle-based Elby Brosch and Shane Donohue of Drama Tops.
Artist Questionnaire: Asher Hartman
We're partnering with PICA to profile artists in their 2025 TBA festival. First up, Los Angeles-based Asher Hartman.
Artist Q&A: Andy Cash DeLapp
Neddy Award grantee Andy Cash DeLapp answers our questionnaire about his work.
A haptic sensibility: Christopher Baliwas interviewed
Writer Mark Pieterson sat down with LA-based artist Christopher Baliwas to discuss lower frequencies, the color brown, and the latest Clipse album.
Every day altars: Andrea Castillo’s Counter Space makes the familiar sacred
Andrea Castillo’s solo exhibition Counter Space was a tender and radical tribute to the immigrant-run storefronts that shaped the artist’s upbringing in Los Angeles, while also speaking to a larger narrative of diasporic belonging, economic survival, and cultural inheritance.
The body as a place: Recent Grads at Blackfish Gallery in Portland, OR
A group exhibition with work by graduates from thirteen Oregon universities examines the connection between bodies and nature.
Food for thought: Consider the Oyster at Anthony Meier in Mill Valley, CA
A group exhibition takes inspiration from MFK Fisher's iconic book.
Libby Black: Tracing Time
7 November – 19 December 2025
Anthony Meier Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
For over two decades, Black has worked across drawing, painting, and sculpture to develop a tactile language that foregrounds the material, political, and emotional dimensions of the everyday. Best known for her sculptures—rendered in paper, paint, graphite, and hot glue—she transforms familiar objects into portals that reveal the intersections of personal memory and collective cultural meaning.
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You are the space between: Joe Park at Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, OR
Intricate paintings explore a world where energy and matter are porous and fluid.
Who do you carry with you? Malcolm Peacock at SE Cooper Contemporary
Through audio, participatory sculpture, and memory, the exhibit poses the salient questions: “who are you carrying with you?”
Who Do I Think I Am? Lynn Hershman Leeson at Altman Siegel
A multi-media artist on the West Coast gets up close and personal with their viewers, unsettling the notion of a fixed identity.
When We Were Here Last: Muzae Sesay at pt. 2
Muzae Sesay's latest solo exhibition, When We Were Here Last, prompts a contemplation of personal and public history.
What cannot be destroyed: JJJJJerome Ellis interviewed
On the heels of JJJJJerome Ellis' hybrid-performance Aster of Ceremonies, at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, writer Kaya Noteboom sits down with Ellis to discuss finding home in writing fragments, …
West Coast artists in Foreigners Everywhere: Dispatch from the Venice Biennale 2024
Five West Coast artists stand out in the overwhelming 331 artists from 90 countries of the 60th Venice Biennale.
We Vessels of Existence: Jesse Mockrin at Night Gallery
Religious images question the multifaceted nature of human lives.
We are having this conversation now, yesterday, and tomorrow: Michael Espinoza interviewed
The Portland-based artist talks about Queer Ancestors lost to persecution, disease, fatal sadness, and closets.
Wayne Thiebaud & Ghia’s Le Spritz
Wayne Tiebaud's distinctly Californian sense of lighting and the perfect non-alcoholic aperitif.
Waves of meaning: Turning the Page at Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco
A photography exhibition both spatial and haptic marks the end of an era in San Francisco.
Unknowable Spaces: William Matheson’s “Dissipatio” at Nationale
Evocative oil paintings on jute canvas trouble the perception of figure-ground relationships.
Treasure Hunting in Grass Valley: Elizabeth Dorbad Interviewed
Two artists from Grass Valley, CA, talk about making art in rural communities and the magic of stones.
Traveling West: Art and Cars in the 2022 Whitney Biennial
LA-based artists bring West Coast car culture to New York City.
Tom Friedman’s 1000 Hours of Staring
How a blank piece of paper inspired Variable West's founder to be an art critic and writer.
Toby Jurovics on Ron Jude
We talked to Barry Lopez Foundation director Toby Jurovics about the origins of the foundation and Ron Jude's photography.
This Clay Too: a gesture of collective care in San Francisco’s Tenderloin
Featuring ceramic work made by community members and artists in the Tenderloin, This Clay Too altogether propose alternative visions of the future, where art and art-making retain their revolutionary, world-building …
Theaters for Frankensteins: Yuyang Zhang Interviewed
Yuyang Zhang's paintings and digital collages offer cultural commentary through memes, Chinese-American culture, and dark humor.
The Weight of lightness: Jenene Nagy at Helzer Gallery
Jenene Nagy’s exhibition, The Weight, is a welcome dialogue of artistic concept inextricably connected to a profound commitment to artistic making.
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