Back in 2003, artists in Portland hosted a citywide exhibition of contemporary art called Core Sample.

At the time, I thought of Portland as a lesser Seattle, which is why I didn't go there much. Hopping a southbound train (booked and staffed by Core Sample), I was prepared to be nice. Encouraging even. Certainly not what I was, startled by the range and depth of what was on view, especially in video.

Five years later, two Portland artists continue to stand out: Vanessa Renwick, for a piece titled "Hunting Requires Optimism," which says all there is to say about being an artist (or critic) living outside a geographic center, and Matt McCormick, for "The Unconscious Art of Graffiti Removal."

McCormick went global on the basis of "The Unconscious Art," which treats mismatched passages of paint covering graffiti on public buildings as art, pretending to reveal Rothkos hidden in plain sight. Dealers who tried to take him in hand advised him to sell high in limited editions, rather than low and unlimited. Being the ultimate Oregon progressive, he continues to offer wares on his Website for a pittance.

Playing on three screens simultaneously, McCormick's new series on the death of the motorized Western vacation, "future so bright," is at Seattle University's Hedreen Gallery in the Lee Center, 901 12th Ave., curated by the always astute Carrie Scott.

Images of abandoned homesteads, fading neon, trailer parks flooded and left to rot, and motels fallen to their knees appear and slide past each other. Unlike Louis Simpson's contention in "Walt Whitman at Bear Mountain" that the "open road leads to the used car lot," McCormick suggests it leads nowhere at all.

"I've been driving through the West all my life," he said at the opening Thursday night. "I have a fascination bordering on obsession with abandoned spaces."

Nearly everything on the screens was built in response to car culture. They are the roadside attractions lining Route 66, where in the 1950s and 1960s, Americans got their kicks.

Because Interstate 40 bypassed these tributes to small enterprise, they died and caved in on themselves. Motels still advertise their weekly rates, but with lettering missing and advertising promises poised on the edge of erasure. "Sleep in a Wigwam." "Don't miss Big John's Branding Iron." "Get Your Rocks Wholesale."

McCormick's project is Alan Weisman's "The World Without Us" come to life. What's missing from McCormick's catalog is us. Only our works remain. As nature dismantles them, they are lovely in their ruins.