Art Exhibitions
We believe creativity is essential to imagining a healthier future for forests. Our exhibitions amplify diverse voices from artists and communities who care deeply about forest ecosystems and who are responding to environmental challenges with curiosity, care, and bold ideas.
Art Gallery in the Discovery Museum
Located in the second-floor art gallery of the Discovery Museum, our rotating art exhibitions showcase contemporary artists whose work explores forests, climate, culture, and society’s evolving relationship with the natural world.
Through immersive installations, sculpture, multimedia works, and interactive experiences, these exhibitions invite visitors to slow down, reflect, and engage with forest issues in personal and unexpected ways. Art becomes a bridge—connecting science and emotion, data and storytelling, and individual experience with collective action.
Each exhibition is designed to spark conversation and deeper thinking about the role forests play in our lives—from climate resilience and biodiversity to culture, identity, and stewardship. Visitors are encouraged to bring their own questions into the space and explore how art can help us better understand both the beauty and complexity of forest systems.
Whether you’re encountering forest issues for the first time or engaging with them in new ways, our art gallery offers a place to experience forests through creativity, imagination, and shared inquiry—and to consider what kind of future we want to grow together.
Featured Exhibition:
Forest Hope Through Innovation
Featuring work by more than twelve innovators, the exhibition highlights the aesthetics of emerging forest-based research—from technology and engineering to design and artist-scientist collaborations.
Past Exhibitions
Sasquatch:
Ancestral Guardians
May 30, 2025 – January 4, 2026
Indigenous peoples have long been in relationship with and shared stories about sacred forest protectors, often called Sasquatch and Bigfoot. The exhibition is advised by and consists of original artwork by: Phillip Cash Cash, Ph.D., HollyAnna CougarTracks DeCoteau Littlebull, Charlene “Tillie” Moody, Frank Buffalo Hyde, and Rocky LaRock, Greg Archuleta.
Following Fire:
A Resilient Forest/An Uncertain Future
Novemner 1, 2024 - April 27, 2025
In September 2020, the Holiday Farm Fire, driven by fierce east winds, burned 173,000 acres along the forested McKenzie River canyon in the Cascade Range of Oregon. Two months later, in an impulsive response, photographer David Paul Bayles and disturbance ecologist Frederick Swanson began a photography project to document the stark beauty of the burned forest and its vibrant response to fire.
Tree People:
Puiden Kansa
June 1 – September 29, 2025
A journey through time and place, Tree People is underpinned by forest-based myths and lore that were once central to people’s lives in rural Finland, Estonia, and East Karelia. Artists Ritva Kovalainen and Sanni Seppo spent ten years studying this material, learning the stories in this exhibition through conversation with locals, finding them in archival research, and witnessing them during their numerous travels.
State of the Forest
February 1 - April 28, 2024
Painted over a ten-year period, artist Suze Woolf captures the unusual beauty of the fire-carved snags, known as “totems,” from all over the North American West. Suze’s original paintings have been digitally reproduced at full size on multiple layers of fabric. Fourteen of the trees have companion “story trees,” written by author Lorena Williams, white text on black shapes that correspond to the trees they reference.
Obscurity:
Life Inside the Smoke
September 1 – December 30, 2023
As wildfires worsen, smoke permeates our lives and livelihoods, reminding us that we must find a new way to live with the forests that surround us. Through a dynamic mix of sculpture, printmaking, painting, and installation, six artists reveal their unique perspectives and individual relationships with the smoke-filled reality. Artists include: Amirah Chatman, Santigie & Sapata Fofana-Dura, Roger Peet, Erica Meryl Thomas, and Alex Wiseman FKA Gary.
Rethinking Fire
June 15, 2022 - July 31, 2023
Through the intersection of art and science, this exhibit invites visitors to explore the idea that forests and fire are not opposed, but rather part of the same continuous cycle. The exhibit explores the ecological role of fire and the human impacts behind the rise of large and severe wildfires. Arizona-based artist Bryan David Griffith used fire itself to create paintings, sculptures, and large-scale art installations for this exhibition.
Past Pop-Up Exhibits
What the Log Saw:
Honoring the legacy of Catherine "The Log Lady" Coulson
Step into the world of Twin Peaks and discover the profound story behind one of the series’ most memorable characters. Through this unique exhibit, visitors discovered the character and backstory of Margaret, “The Log Lady,” and learned how Catherine Coulson, deeply moved by her character’s trauma, used it as a platform to advocate for wildfire prevention and educate her community about the importance of protecting the forests she loved.
Fire Maps
Kate Simmons
Adjacent to the Following Fire exhibition, this is an installation of ceramic figures informed by the Riverside Fire of Oregon that affected 138,054 acres of land along the Clackamas River and Mt. Hood National Forest in 2020. Each figure varies in scale and depicts unique gestures of shock and disbelief. The forms are molded from clay with immediacy to reflect the sudden and abrupt demand for people to evacuate their homes in response to the wildfire threat.
Partner with us!
Have an idea for an exhibition, performance, workshop, or artist talk? We’d love to hear it. Reach out to start a conversation about bringing your creative vision to World Forestry Center.