Memory Palace – A Solo Exhibition by Marsha Mack
Posted by zeinab.saab
Double Berry, 2025, Glazed Ceramic, 16.5x15x6″
EVENT:
- Opening Reception- Friday, March 6th, 2026 from 5-8p
- Candy Tasting Workshop- Saturday, April 4th, 2026, from12-3
**All programming is free and open to the public.**
PORTLAND, OR — Paragon Arts Gallery at PCC Cascade presents Memory Palace, a solo exhibition by Marsha Mack. The exhibition opens Friday, March 6th, 2026, and runs through Saturday, April 11th, 2026.
Please join us for the opening event on Friday, March 6th, 2026 from 5-8p. The gallery will open at 12pm and close at 8pm.
All events are free and open to the public.
Drawing parallels between mixed-race identity and formative memories in Asian grocery stores, Marsha Mack’s Memory Palace is a solo exhibition of ceramic sculpture, installation, and imported candies. Imagined as a surreal retail environment where aisles hold handbuilt ceramics and found object alongside the artist’s favorite childhood candies, Mack creates mixed-media snapshots capturing moments and ideas tracing back to the formation of her Vietnamese American biracial identity – one that is sentimental, at times problematic, and actively evolving. Arranged in altar-like tableaus on commercial gondola shelving, memory and fantasy blend, revealing an underlying logic where the potential for curiosity, delight, and personal mythology is present throughout.
As part of the programming for Memory Palace, Mack will host two free public candy tastings in the gallery, one coinciding with the opening reception on Friday, March 6th from 5-8pm, and the second to take place on Saturday, April 4th from 12-3pm.
Memory Palace was made possible through support from RACC and the Office of Arts & Culture.
About the Artist
Marsha Mack holds an MFA in Ceramics and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Women’s and Gender Studies from Syracuse University, as well as a BFA in Ceramics from San Francisco State University. Working primarily in ceramics and installation, Marsha’s artistic practice blurs the line between sculpture and grocery shopping. In earnest pursuit of happiness, abstract vessels in built environments serve as carriers of multivalent identities that exist in constructed versions of paradise, adorned with a visual vocabulary of personal symbols culled from a lifelong fascination with Asian supermarkets. Her ongoing interest in cultural consumption and the formation of identity serves as a wellspring for embellished objects and installations that play to the subconscious, honoring playfulness and introspection as equals.
Marsha is the Assistant Director and Head Curator of Galleries & Exhibitions at the Pacific Northwest College of Art at Willamette University in Portland, OR, a ceramic instructor, and a practicing visual artist. She has presented her artwork with the Columbus Museum of Art (Columbus, OH); Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (Denver, CO); Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum(Denver, CO); Skylab (Columbus, OH); among others. Marsha was recently a 2023-24 recipient of the Greater Columbus Art Council and Columbus Museum of Art’s Visual Arts Fellowship, and a 2025 Artist in Residence with GLEAN in Portland, OR, She lives and works in Portland, OR.
Websites/Social Media:
Marsha Mack-
@yaymarshamack
Swan Song, 2026, Glazed Ceramic