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Brenda Mallory: The North Star Changes

January 25 – March 22, 2025

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery

Brenda Mallory (Cherokee), "Precession" (detail), courtesy of the Russo Lee Gallery.

Brenda Mallory: The North Star Changes features the sculptures and large-scale installations of Brenda Mallory, a nationally recognized Portland mixed-media artist. Organized by the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, the exhibition features 36 objects on loan from public and private collections throughout the western United States, including several from the Hallie Ford Museum of Art. The title of the exhibition is based on the idea that, while the North Star or Polaris is usually thought of as permanent, in fact it has changed its location over the course of thousands of years. “The idea of change has always been in my work,” Mallory has said.

Mallory describes her art process as bricolage—the construction or creation of an object from a diverse range of available materials. One of her processes is to dip flannel in beeswax and shape the cloth into undulating, biomorphic forms, many of which suggest living organisms. Once she has created the individual parts, she assembles them together with nuts and bolts and other crude hardware to create the final sculpture. In other mixed-media works, she cuts apart and re-forms linen fire hoses into wall hangings, slices open spools of industrial thread to form fields of color, and works with reclaimed drive belts of various types to create linear drawings. “The idea that an object has more than one use, more than one life in it, appeals to me,” she has commented.

Brenda Mallory (Cherokee) was born in Claremore, Oklahoma in 1955. As a young girl, she remembers watching her father’s crafting techniques of binding objects with baling wire, which she credits as an influence in her art. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where she earned a BA degree in linguistics and English; when she moved to Portland, she continued her education at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, where she earned her BFA degree in fine art. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections throughout the United States, and she is the recipient of an Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship as well as fellowships from the Native Arts and Culture Foundation and The Ford Family Foundation.

Exhibition Related Events

To be announced.

Financial Support