The Maude Kerns Art Center is proud to present “Forever in Blue Jeans: A Mid-Career Retrospective of Hilary Pfeifer,” opening Friday, May 8, with a public reception from 5 – 7 pm. The exhibit traces Pfeifer’s roots in Eugene and her formative relationship with the Maude Kerns Art Center, where she first studied as a young artist, while surveying 25 years of her work. “Forever in Blue Jeans” positions Pfeifer at a reflective midpoint in her career: looking back at the community and landscape that shaped her, while debuting new work that responds to the ecological and social realities of the present. The exhibit is on view through Friday, June 5.

Pfeifer is an enormously talented multi-faceted artist whose work spans sculpture, collage, installation, and public art. Her work has been exhibited in group and solo shows in galleries and museums throughout the US, most recently in the “Birds in Art” exhibit at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin in 2025. Her public art commissions grace many sites in Portland and beyond, including in Eugene in the lobby of Huestis Hall at the University of Oregon. Here an installation of laser-cut panels and suspended sculptures called “Confluence” celebrates the site’s revolutionary zebra fish research lab. Pfeifer is the recipient of many grants and awards, including a grant from the Puffin Foundation which supports in part her godseye series on view in the Art Center’s retrospective. Pfeifer’s art has been featured in American Craft magazine and was recently profiled on Oregon Art Beat.