PORTLAND, OR.- Color is a foundational concern in Katherine Bradford's (b. 1942, New York, NY; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Brunswick, ME) work. Her paintings begin with broad washes of reds, blues, greens, and purples across the canvas surface. From their beginnings as pure, unbridled, and luminous color, Bradford's paintings—which distinctly occupy a space between figuration and abstraction—slowly reveal mood, suggestion, or relationship. In "Six Fires," Bradford creates an otherworldly scene to consider the very essence of color itself: an evocative field of blue is simultaneously sea, sky, and space. Figures lit as if by moonlight ponder the primary colors that are not inherent properties, but rather perceptions of the fires that Bradford has painted for their warmth.

Bill Traylor (b. 1853, Benton, AL; d. 1949, Montgomery, AL), a self-taught artist born into slavery, began to draw at the age of 85 while living on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama. Using discarded cardboard and signs, pencil, and poster paint, Traylor chronicled his life experiences, recording his memories of plantation life and later observations of the city—uniquely describing animals, human figures, and abstract forms with a commanding use of line, color, and composition. Traylor's body of work speaks poignantly to the complexities, inequalities, and tensions that the artist experienced during slavery and the Jim Crow Era in the American South. Among a mostly muted palette of color and materials, Traylor favored blue, a powerful color in African spiritual traditions. Traylor's "Untitled (Cat with Signature)," one of many animals he drew throughout his body of work, is rendered in his distinctive rich cobalt hue.

Ralph Pugay's (b. 1983 in Cavite, Philippines; lives and works in Portland, OR) painted propositions result from the artist's careful study of the human condition and his critical engagement with ideas of class, race, gender, and queer culture. Drawing on his interest in Catholicism, history, and his curiosity about contemporary culture as filtered through TikTok and other social media, Pugay poignantly examines popular trends, viral news stories, consumer fads, and other forms of social phenomena with clarity and humor, locating moments of tension in the collective unconscious. In "Birds of South 13th and Leavenworth Street," on view in "Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue," Pugay was inspired by a lunchtime walk in Omaha with a fellow artist who spotted a flock of birds perched in a tangle of rebar at a construction site. With its grid-like metal structure and the birds' loud, cacophonous noises, the artist imagined these common house sparrows might be pretending to be caged. Across the sprawling 24 panels of this work, Pugay captures the energy of the sparrows' lively, discordant chirps and their personalities through bold use of primary colors, as the pattern of the rebar recalls a dogmatic modernist grid.

Marlon Mullen's (b. 1963 in Richmond, CA; lives in Rodeo, CA and works in Richmond, CA) use of color is one of the most distinctive aspects of his artistic practice. His paintings transform magazine covers and art publications such as Art In America, Frieze, and Artforum, characterized by vibrant, bold color choices. In his resulting works, Mullen flattens the visual hierarchy of text and images and reconfigures the information into innovative abstract compositions of viscous paint, the tactile quality of which creates a physical presence that emphasizes the material nature of color itself.

Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt's (b. 1948 Elizabeth, NJ; lives and works in New York, NY) opulent sculptural assemblages belie their humble origins as common household items and dollar store finds such as newspaper, cellophane, Scotch tape, aluminum foil, and glitter. Lanigan-Schmidt uses these low-brow materials to craft maximalist sculptures that explore issues of sexuality, queer culture, class struggle, and religion. While his work is most often considered through the lens of identity, Lanigan-Schmidt points out the central role color has played in his work: "My art is about the psychology of color and the impact of the way color is contained in certain materials. What I make is basically a way that color is contained in a way that is not contained in paint."

Included in "Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue" is a painting by Alfred Jensen (b. 1903, Guatemala City; d. 1981, Livingston, NJ) titled "Equality for All No. 1" (1972). The painting contains a checkerboard of bright impasto colors with hieroglyphic symbols, some connected with an overlaid diagrammatic line. Driven to give form to a wide range of systems and beliefs, including philosophies of mathematics, science, and Goethe's theory of color, Jensen mapped out a universe of thought and interconnectedness across each panel. The colors the artist used were not simply descriptive, but rather they possessed their own power, meaning, and universal truth.

Ingrid Yi-Chen Lu's (b. 2000, Taipei, Taiwan; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) paintings, zines, drawings, ceramics, and installations draw on the decorative and commercial detritus that populates the periphery of her daily life between New York and Taipei. Lu collects materials in a process she refers to as "drifting," a term coined by Guy Debord, where she meanders through urban spaces in search of discarded items from stationery stores, ribbon markets, cafes, and birthday parties. With a resolute insistence on the magic and phenomenological power of remnants like glitter, paper scraps, flower petals, and ribbon scraps, Lu maps them onto systems of lines and radial forms. The grid often reappears in her work, as in "Grid City" and "1111," drawing connections between minimalist abstraction, pattern, maps, and city layouts. Lu treats color and light as materials in their own right, as seen in "Disco Lamp," which evokes both dance parties and glittering cityscapes.

Ian Miyamura (b. 1991 Kailua, HI; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) shape-shifts between multiple styles and art historical periods in his paintings of photorealistic miniatures and birds in flight, conceptual distortions of text, and abstract geometric and painterly compositions. Moving fluidly between these highly specific aesthetic categories, Miyamura upends expectations of authorship and mastery while exploring issues of mimesis and assimilation. His series of "fraternal paintings" feature pairs of highly chromatic geometric diptychs that pay homage to De Stijl, a Dutch movement whose adherents believed they were creating a pure universal language through their use of primary colors. Miyamura's versions veer from their historical precedents with secondary and tertiary colors, and further by doubling their panels. Though seemingly alike, the pair of paintings have slight variations in size and painterly surface, and can be hung in multiple configurations, calling attention to the artist's acts of mimicry.

Gina Fischli's (b. 1989, lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland) DIY world is populated with sculptures of cute animals, tiered cakes, embellished handbags, and glittery cocktails—objects we often form emotional attachments to, yet are typically regarded as too trivial for fine art. Pieced together from craft store findings, basic construction materials, and fabric scraps, Fischli's objects are both slapdash and excessive; beneath their shiny surfaces, their humble foundations poke through—glued seams, plaster gauze, and plywood substrates give away their true nature. In an ongoing series based on Josef Albers' "Homage to the Square," Fischli creates homespun versions of the iconic theorist's color studies using glitter on plywood in vibrant, rave-like colorways. Fischli's gaudy replicas speak to the role color plays in contemporary notions of consumption, desire, and hierarchies of taste.