Left: Portrait of Dyani White Hawk courtesy of the artist / Copyright Dyani White Hawk. Right: Portrait of Kate Newby ©Atsushi Nakamichi, Nacása & Partners Inc./ Courtesy of Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – March 25, 2025
Portland, OR — In collaboration with the Port of Portland, the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) is proud to announce that Dyani White Hawk and Kate Newby have been chosen to create large-scale, 2D public art works for Portland International Airport (PDX), anticipated to be installed in late 2025 and debut to the public in 2026. Newby and White Hawk were selected through a competitive process by the PDX Terminal Core Redevelopment (TCORE) Public Art Committee from an applicant pool of over 110 artists and artist teams from across the United States.
The renovation of PDX’s new main terminal aims to increase the capacity, flexibility, and resilience of the airport, while improving the travel experience and adding more of what people love about PDX–including more art.. White Hawk and Newby’s artworks are two of several exciting new public art projects RACC is managing during the airport’s redevelopment.
The unique works will be located on walls along the north and south exit routes for travelers, where greeters wait after security, with each spanning over 50-feet long. Not only will they provide natural wayfinding cues for travelers, but the works will also be an impactful, beautiful welcome to PDX for locals and visitors alike.
“The selection of artists Dyani White Hawk and Kate Newby reflects our commitment to curating impactful public art—works that resonate with our region’s landscapes, histories, and communities,” said Kristin Law Calhoun, Director of Partnerships and Programs at the Regional Arts & Culture Council. “Guiding a committee of artists, community members, and Port employees through this thoughtful selection process reinforced the power of collaborative decision-making in shaping public spaces. These works will create a uniquely PDX experience as enduring landmarks that will welcome and inspire visitors and residents alike.”
“We are honored to have work from Kate and Dyani as part of the airport’s permanent collection, which aims to celebrate everyone’s life experiences, voices, and cultures,” said Wendy Given, Art Program Manager at the Port of Portland. “The proposals from each artist retain their unique voices, are strongly tied to the Pacific Northwest region and our community, and will further enrich PDX’s forest-inspired design.”
About the Artists and Artworks
Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) is a visual artist based in Minneapolis, MN. White Hawk earned a MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2011) and BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM (2008). Her artistic work is multidisciplinary, drawing from her cross-cultural experiences as a woman of Sičangu Lakota and European American ancestry raised within Native and urban American communities.
Support for White Hawk’s work includes a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital grant, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship along with many others. White Hawk’s work is in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among other public and private collections. She is represented by Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis, MN.
White Hawk’s 55-foot long symmetrical glass and natural stone mosaic draws on the materiality of beading and weaving traditions as well as her own abstract painting practice to realize an abstracted view of the majestic silhouette of Mt. Hood reflected and situated in day and night cycles. The artwork incorporates rich colors, lines, and patterns that prioritize Indigenous practices of abstraction within contemporary artistic expression.
Grounded in White Hawk’s identity as a Lakota woman and artist, the piece honors the aesthetic traditions of her own lineage while also honoring the land in which the work is situated. By drawing on motifs, patterns, and symbolism found within artistic languages of tribes indigenous to the Oregon region that are akin to the aesthetics of her own lineage, she is able to speak to multiple and intersecting histories of Indigenous abstraction.
Kate Newby (b. 1979, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand; based in San Antonio, TX) is a sculptor known for her site-responsive installations, architectural interventions, and material-driven explorations. Working primarily with glass, ceramics, and found materials, Newby engages with space’s physical and atmospheric qualities, creating sculptures that emerge from sustained engagement with a place. Her work incorporates elements reflecting a site’s social and environmental rhythms—wind, light, rain, and human and non-human activity traces.
Newby has had solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; Klosterruine, Berlin; and the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, among others. She has participated in group exhibitions at venues including Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. In 2018 she was included in the 21st Biennale of Sydney and currently has work in the Sharjah Biennial 16.
Kate has participated in numerous residencies, including The Chinati Foundation Artist in Residence in Marfa, TX; Artpace in San Antonio, TX; and Fogo Island Arts in Newfoundland. She won the Walters Prize, New Zealand’s most significant contemporary art award in 2012 and in 2019, she received a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant.
“The Sound of Trees,” is a 76 foot long mural that evokes Oregon’s forested landscape through a richly textured surface of glazed ceramic tiles. The work will conjure up a distinct color palette drawn from the state’s diverse vegetation with a focus on the season of fall.
At a distance, The Sound of Trees will give the impression of a large-scale abstract landscape. Textures and shapes from Oregon’s native foliage, impressed and incised into the clay, will create a sensory touchstone for PDX visitors. The work connects seamlessly with the interior landscaping and design of the new PDX Terminal, while creating a direct connection between airport visitors and Oregon’s majestic forests.
Community Engagement
As part of The Sound of Trees, community members are invited to participate in urban foraging workshops led by Kate Newby in partnership with the Regional Arts & Culture Council and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. Participants will collect discarded glass, which will be embedded into clay and fired, becoming a permanent part of the mural. Interested in learning more? Sign up to be notified about the urban foraging opportunities.
In addition, Newby is also collaborating with students at The Cottonwood School of Civics and Science. Through art and science curriculum, students will imprint mural tiles with natural elements gathered from the local environment, integrating hands-on fieldwork with classroom learning.
Find additional images of the artists’ work here
Contact Information
About the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC)
For decades, RACC has aimed to serve every neighborhood of our region to ensure that arts and culture are accessible to all. Our nationally acclaimed public art program enlivens parks, community centers, government buildings, libraries and health clinics; brings people and communities together; and makes our region a more vibrant and welcoming place to be. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, we work to elevate the voices and visibility of individual artists, creative organizations and arts nonprofits – especially those that serve underrepresented communities – amplifying their impact through grants, professional development and other vital resources. Through strategic partnerships, our team works to build coalitions and lead new initiatives, crafting a shared vision for an equitable future for arts and culture in our region. For more information, please visit racc.org.
About Port of Portland
With three airports, three active marine terminals, and five business parks, the Port of Portland is an economic engine for transforming the region into a place where everyone is welcome, empowered, and connected to the opportunity to find a good job or grow their business. The Port works to pull down barriers and provide access to people and local businesses who have been left out of the region’s economic growth—including people of color, low-income workers, and people with disabilities. Collectively, the Port leads big projects in the region, including building a new PDX with a community-centered approach; transforming a former marine terminal into a site for innovation in the housing construction and mass timber industries; and providing more options for Pacific Northwest businesses to send their products around the world. For more information, visit www.PortofPortland.com.
