Experiential exhibit champions Black culture

Oaks’s high-concept approach, inviting spectators through three themed rooms — “The Studio,” “The Porch,” and “The Living Room” — was born out of a whim, rooted in a desire to offer something entirely novel. 

Where your typical art gallery contributes paintings hung from sterile, white walls, “Black Infinity House” transports you inside an immersive, interactive fixture — inside its artists’ favored creative realms. Furniture and scattered home decor, including books, vinyl records, and clothing, provide a lived-in, culturally rich environment for visitors to mingle and settle in as they peruse artworks.

“I’ve done a few art shows before, and I wanted to do something that made me feel how art makes me feel — how it feels to make art,” Oaks said. “One night, it just clicked. Maybe I wrote it down. It just came to me.”

Beyond its tangible, navigable structure, the show’s titular metaphor centers on Blackness as an indefinable, limitless concept: those who identify as Black, African American, Black biracial, or Black multiracial cannot be pigeonholed into a single definition, experience, or mode of expression. Similar to the crowded, non-conforming nature of its halls and walls, “Black Infinity House” illustrates Blackness as an expansive, ever-evolving cultural force. 

Despite the exhibit's grandiosity, drawing well over 100 visitors on opening night, Oaks’s curation process was notably simple. To attract artists, he wrote a conceptual brief for the show, shared it with his friends, and asked them to pass it along to others. 

It’s safe to say the pitch worked wonders. Those who resonated with his vision offered to be in the show, and that was that. “I just let everybody who thought the show was a good idea in, and it ended up being all of these incredibly talented people,” Oaks said. 

Nearly every featured artist is based in the Gorge or the Pacific Northwest, with many hailing from the Portland area. In unison with BiG, “Black Infinity House is about making sure people feel less isolated and more supported out here,” Oaks added. 

In the Columbia River Gorge, a community gathering of this scale, uplifting and increasing visibility for Black artists, isn’t an everyday occurrence. For context, only 1% of Hood River and Wasco county residents identified as Black, and just over 3% selected two or more races in the 2024 U.S. Census data. “We’re here to support. We’re here to connect and join in,” Oaks said. “I’m just glad that everybody’s coming together, whether the artist is from Portland or somewhere out here.”

Each artist on display, contributing anywhere from one to 10-plus pieces, brings something unique to the table. Two individuals, however, DeLoné Osby and Kyra Watkins, appear most frequently, with their work permeating “The Studio,” “The Porch,” and “The Living Room.”

Osby, an Afro-Indigenous, queer, and fem-presenting person who grew up in conservative Texas, uses pyrography (the freehand art of decorating wood with burn marks) and other media to channel the pain, healing, and joy of their ancestors and themselves. Their striking wooden pieces, often portraits of Black women, Black hair, and snakes, are an easy standout within the display.

Watkins, a Portland-based artist who began as a mural apprentice at 15, stresses youth empowerment in her figurative works, which depict young children with jewelry, tattoos, piercings and confident expressions. She aspires to marry her love for public art and youth engagement by creating a youth public art program.

Though some artists, such as Osby and Watkins, have pieces strewn throughout the exhibit, each section, or room, has a distinct vibe.

“The Studio” inhabits a hallway, in essence, at the exhibit’s edge, where Oaks’ personal desk set-up lies. Various paintings propped up by easels, hot-glued floral garb, Coogi sweaters, introspective poetry and quilts by original BiG member Linda Floyd explore identity’s role in the creative process — how Black and BIPOC artists of infinite backgrounds might translate experiences into expression. 

“The Porch,” connecting cultivation, nature, rest, and safe space, is covered in plants, paintings of plants, and ceramic pots indicative of, well, a front porch. 

By far the exhibit’s largest section, “The Living Room,” centering on culture, gathering, and creative consumption, houses a couch, book-laden coffee table, piano, multiple turntables, a wall of records, and a plethora of paintings and photographs. Here, visitors can sit down, chat, and listen to music, immersed in a cultural melting pot. 

Several businesses from across the community pitched in to help bring “Black Infinity House” to life, including ADHD Records, which supplied a share of the vinyl on display, and Precious Drab Vintage, which contributed various apparel. Other sponsors include Analemma Wines, Garnier Vineyards, Grateful Vineyards, Boda’s Kitchen, Solstice Pizza, Ice Cream for Crow Vintage, Artifacts and the Gorge Rebuild It Center. “It’s been awesome to see how tight-knit our community is,” Oaks said. “And being able to create something that’s different, but welcoming and inviting has been a joy.”

For visitors, Black, BIPOC, or not, Oaks hopes his exhibit can help affirm their individuality, open them up to new ideas, and develop a greater sense of community. “I hope they feel celebrated, happy, and inspired,” he said. “I hope people feel that they can just be their eclectic selves, or personal selves, or unique selves. 

“Black Infinity House” is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Don’t miss it.