Western art derives its definition from latitude and longitude, but also from style. “There’s not one West,” said Melanie Fales, executive director and CEO of the Boise Art Museum. “I think even defining ‘Western’ art is difficult because it’s a diverse nation, and it’s a diverse region,” she said. “The stories that have been told in the past haven’t included this entire diversity of stories that really need to be told about Western American history. We need to be looking at the whole story: the real stories, the marginalized stories, the hidden stories and the lesser-known stories.” Through October 13, the Boise Art Museum offers a chance to engage in the art of the West in its exhibition “Coyote Now,” a large-scale installation by RYAN! Feddersen, a Tacoma-based artist and enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. The interactive exhibition includes a 55-foot mural which brings Coyote, a central figure in many Indigenous Pacific Northwest stories, into present-day situations. Also on view this summer, “Myths, Fables, and Fortunes,” is an ongoing exhibition based on the realities of the Western landscape, and the relationship humans share with the natural environment. See boiseartmuseum.org.

Located at Willamette University, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art has two permanent exhibitions to immerse viewers in an exploration of Western art: “Northwest Perspectives: Selections from the Permanent Collection,” which captures historic and contemporary perspectives of life in the Pacific Northwest, and “Ancestral Dialogues: Conversations in Native American Art/The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Gallery,‘’ representing generations of American Indian art forms and their transformation over time. See willamette.edu.

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, located both on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene and at Portland State University in Portland, continues to expand its permanent collection with an eye on art of the West. One artist of the collection, painter James Lavadour, is a Walla Walla tribal member and co-founder of Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts in Pendleton. “Lavadour is a great example of an artist whose paintings would make sense in a Western art museum because of all the things that they depict; he translates the [Western landscape] through his painting,” said Danielle Knapp, the museum’s McCosh Curator at the University of Oregon. See jsma.uoregon.edu.

“Art in the West,” an annual juried exhibition and silent auction, returns to the High Desert Museum this summer July 20-September 20. From traditional to contemporary art, the collection honors the landscapes, plants and animals, people and cultures which have contributed to the rich history of the West, specifically in the high desert region. See highdesertmuseum.org.

The Portland Art Museum’s recent exhibition titled “Black Artists of Oregon,” explored the works of African-Americans who have made art in Oregon from the 1880s to present. Grace Kook-Anderson, the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art at the Portland Art Museum, worked with Curator Intisar Abioto to enrich the museum’s permanent collection. “One of the things that curators do when they begin their tenure at a museum is to look at the collection’s history and also think about the gaps in the collection,” Kook-Anderson said. “Oftentimes there are a lot of gaps among women artists and artists of color. I think there’s a lot of good intention in trying to work toward filling in those gaps.” Watch for future exhibitions that may include these new additions to the permanent collection. See portlandartmuseum.org.