EMERGENCE: Feb-March 2026
Featuring Portland Artist Michael Webb and theWABASHproject owner/curator Christine Chaney
Michael Webb's mask and tapestry works pay homage to trickster energies that outwit the darkness and return us to the light. Christine’s watercolors and upcycled assemblages reference the cyclical nature of our time on Earth and the inevitable returning of the light.
Michael Webb’s fabric panels hang on either side of a traditional African Dan Guere ceremonial mask. These masks are known for their powerful aesthetic and are used in significant rituals and social contexts.
Michael Webb’s hooded cloth masks play with religious iconography and jester-like transformational imagery. Much like the Dan Guere mask the devil mask is meant to illicit fear , awe and power in the viewer.
Michael Webb created all the costumes in this artful folk fairy tale full of forest creatures and human beasts. The raven plays it’s roll as trickster with a full cast of clever beasts like racoon and rabbit, monkey and man. The tale may be lost, but these images conjure life’s broad experiences of searching, betrayal, hubris, loss and in the end, well, the end. Death comes for everyone, clever or clueless.