Coming up in 2026
Opening May 16, 2026
Forms of Care: The Art of Representing the Body
Featured artists: Leslie Barlow, Marra Evans, Sarah Faris, Jessalyn Finch, Ni-Ka Ford, Life Drawing for the End of the World, Lucia Garces, May Ling Kopecky, Marianne Petit, Steven Premo, Jenny Schmid, Christopher Selleck, Dan Thompson, Megan Vossler, Jess Kiel-Wornson.
Curators: Zoe Cinel and LaVanda Mireles
Exhibition on view: Saturday, May 16, 2026 - January 31, 2027
Reception: Saturday, August 22, 2026, 1:00 - 3:00 PM | Free
Figurative drawing workshop led by Megan Vossler (in the Gallery):
June 28, 2026, 10 AM - 12 PM
Exhibition page: https://www.rochesterartcenter.org/exhibition/forms-of-care
“Did you ever ask yourself, of all the parts that make that man, which one holds the souls?”
In the 2025 Frankenstein movie directed by Guillermo del Toro, a concerned William asks this existential question to his brother, Doctor Victor Frankenstein. William’s question refers to the “Creature,” a resurrected being his brother brought back to life by patching together limbs and body parts of soldiers, criminals and other “unknown” individuals.
In the movie, Dr. Frankenstein evades William's question, but this recent take on Mary Shelley’s famous novel still highlights some of the contradictions embedded in the history of medicine and medical illustration. It nods at the power structures that have always existed within the relationships between doctor and patients, surgeon and artists, artists and subject, bringing up questions like: who did the bodies that are immortalized into famous medical atlases still used today in medical education belong to? How did they end up being subjects of representation? Through consensual offering or extraction? Does the noble goal of curing justify the means through which medical progress occurs? If everybody - and body part - has a soul, can representation be done with care?
This exhibition grapples with this timely debate around the ethics of representation within the artistic fields that pride themselves on depicting the human body closely and with attention: medical illustration, figurative drawing, and portraiture, and how these fields have struggled to be inclusive and ethically center diverse perspectives. By bringing together fifteen artists that work regionally, nationally and internationally in these fields, Forms of Care: The Art of Representing the Body, proposes contemporary pathways for “careful” representation. Working in a variety of 2D and 3D media - etchings, charcoal, photography, oil painting, digital illustration, 3D sculpting and pop-up books to mention a few - these artists create work that is deeply in conversation and in celebration of the bodies that they portray: either their own or the bodies of beloved relatives and community members.
The exhibition is implemented by programs, interactive artworks and participatory educational activities present in the gallery to directly engage visitors’ bodies. At the center of the gallery is an accessible space designated for figurative drawing, that encourages visitors to literally step into the model’s shoes and experience what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Throughout the run of the exhibition, the space will be activated by workshops and other asynchronous learning opportunities.
Faculty Exhibition at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, August 22 - October 31
Faculty Exhibition at the Gordon Park Gallery (Metropolitan State University), St. Paul November 19, 2026 - January 16, 2027
Coming up in 2027
Residency at Soovac, summer 2027
Solo exhibition at UW-La Crosse Art Gallery, October 29 to November 19, 2027
https://www.uwlax.edu/university-gallery/
Stay tuned!