PDX Contemporary Art is pleased to present Give a girl a dog, an exhibition of new work by artist Elizabeth Knight.

For this exhibition, Knight created embroidered portraits of women and their dogs. The hand- embroidered works are stitched over copies of old photographs of girls with their loyal companions. The varied stitching gives the pairs of past friends dimension and color, lifting them off the flat surface, into intimate, jewel-like portraits.

The work is an acknowledgement of the ageless connection between women, girls, and dogs and the profound and powerful love they share.

Elizabeth Knight is a textile artist and sculptor living and working in Portland, OR. Her delicately embroidered tapestries and soft sculptures often take the shape of animals. Knight notes, “Many of our relationships with animals involve an intense and quiet intimacy as deep as our relationships with other people. My intention is to present this connection to animals through a historical and familial eye, the heirloom as opposed to the specimen box. When we experience this connection, the past and the present are indistinguishable; we are living history.”