On Tuesday, July 22, 2025, at 11.30 a.m. Joseph Gallivan talks to artists about the Recent Grads show at Blackfish Gallery in the Pearl District, a show of works selected by college professors to showcase some outstanding young artists coming out of Oregon colleges and art schools. The guests on the show are Ellen Goldschmidt, co-director of Blackfish; Midori Yamanaka and Manfred Parrales, social practice artists from Portland State University; Ella Jones from Lewis & Clark College; and Nicholas Cheney, writer and artist.
They discuss some of the works on display, many of which focus on identity, anxiety, trauma, healing, and talk about what it’s like to be a young artist today.
From the press release:
About the Recent Grads Show. July 2025
Since 1996 Blackfish Gallery has presented an exhibit of work by recent graduates from the thirteen colleges and universities in Oregon offering BA, BFA and MFA degrees in the Visual Arts. We ask each school to nominate two of their strongest graduating students, and every July we dedicate our gallery spaces to the exhibit. The number of students we have shown over the past twenty-eight years now exceeds 830.
The graduates exhibit a selection of work from their senior projects or theses, or master’s theses.
The work encompasses the wide range of traditional and new media in contemporary art: painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, installation, digital processes, graphic novels, etc.
Participating schools: Eastern Oregon University, George Fox University, Lewis & Clark College, Linfield University, Oregon State University, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Pacific University, Portland State University, Reed College, Southern Oregon University, University of Oregon, Western Oregon University, Willamette University. across Oregon offering BAs, BFAs and MFAs in the visual arts.
This exhibit not only provides many young artists with their first experience of showing their work outside of school, it also promotes the schools and the schools have expressed thanks for this. Many visitors to the show express surprise at how many schools in Oregon offer degrees in art. It is regularly our most visited exhibit of the year.
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Art Focus on K-B-O-O Portland is the show where artists talk about their work.
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Joseph Gallivan has been a reporter since 1990. He has covered music for the London Independent, Technology for the New York Post, and arts and culture for the Portland Tribune and for Axios Portland. He is the author of two novels, "Oi, Ref!" and "England All Over" which are available lightly used.