Yinka Ilori: Mountains Full of Blessings

Yinka Ilori's Mountains Full of Blessings is out in the open at the Portland Art Museum, and it's not something you'll find inside the galleries. It's a monumental piece of asphalt art painted right onto the street on Southwest Madison Street, in front of the Mark Rothko Pavilion at 1219 SW Park Ave. It opened on August 8, 2026, and will stay there through August 31, 2028.

Ilori is a British-Nigerian artist, designer, and entrepreneur born in 1987 in Islington, North London. He works across disciplines, and his visual language draws on his heritage, Nigerian parables, and verbal traditions to push new narratives through contemporary design. He's known for a colorful, "joy-led" philosophy, and he often takes the city as his canvas, reimagining public spaces to encourage community and participation. This piece fits right into that—it turns a section of the urban street grid into the new Cultural District Plaza, conceived as an extension of the museum that greets visitors with the same spirit of welcome found inside the galleries.

The design didn't happen in a vacuum, either. It was shaped with the local community at a workshop in February 2026, which Ilori attended himself. The project was a partnership between the Portland Bureau of Transportation, the Portland Office of Arts and Culture, and the City Repair Project, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies' Asphalt Art Initiative.

Because it's painted on the street, you don't need a ticket or a specific time to see it—you can just walk up to it on your way to the museum or while you're out in the neighborhood. It's located on Southwest Madison Street, right in front of the Mark Rothko Pavilion at 1219 SW Park Ave, and will be there until August 31, 2028.