It’s been a mad decent month for art in Portland, and it looks like February’s going to be pretty dynamite, too. But before we flip the calendar, there are several shows closing this weekend that are definitely worth checking out before they come down. For instance:

Storm Tharp at PDX (925 NW Flanders, closes Saturday)

Sez John Motley: “Somehow the series of portraits in We Appeal to Heaven manages to exceed (the) understandably lofty expectations (that Portlanders reserve for Tharp). This new body of work is almost exclusively limited to portraits of men, each approximately four by five feet and all rendered in ink, gouache, and graphite on paper. Given that description, Tharp’s project might sound unadventurous. Instead, it is feverishly imaginative and technically stunning.”
Sez me: Best artist in Portland.

Michael Brophy at Laura Russo (805 NW 21st, closes Saturday)

Brophy’s got just enough grey hair not to be called one of Portland’s fresh young artists, but he’s definitely not part of the tired old guard who cling to their old Arlene Schnitzer-approved styles of painting like it was the last box of Metamucil at Freddie’s. Instead, Brophy’s been incredibly focused on exploring issues of regionalism and Western “development” through a carefully developed vocabulary of Northwest landscape. Plus, his painting skills improve with every show, which forecasts a future of terrifying beauty.

Chris Verene at Quality Pictures (916 NW Hoyt, closes Saturday)

I’m a huge fan of a lot of Chris Verene’s photographs, but the body of work at QPCA doesn’t really do it for me. The events that are being photographed (self-esteem-building, liberating “lock-ins” that the artist throws) sound far more interesting than the resulting images, which mostly seem incidental at best. The exception, though, is the image here, which looks like no photo I’ve ever seen before in my life (like a cross between Lightning Bolt and Malick Sidibe). This pic alone is totally worth a trip to the gallery, as is the David Hilliard show they also have up.

Plenty other shows coming down this weekend, but these are the ones you’ve gotta hit. God bless connoisseurship.