Forms of Care: The Art of Representing the Body
May 16, 2026 - January 31, 2027
Rochester Art Center

“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….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.