Portraits can be considered historical documents—an impression of a particular person, details of dress, surroundings, of location—but they also provide a timeless glimpse into the sitter’s psychological interiority, making them very much alive in the present. The works in Encounters: Contemporary Portraits attest to the qualities of certain portraits to confront in their immediacy certain enduring questions centered around identity, and personal and collective memory.

Clamoring pots and pans waking a household from its slumber, a bobbin of unspooled thread once used to mend a blouse, handwritten notes in the margin of old family recipes—what is nostalgia if not the impressions we leave behind? How do we mark our presence and preserve it in objects that linger? These questions lie at the heart of Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. Borrowing its title from a quote by American comedian Groucho Marx, the exhibition cheekily captures residual impressions and remnants of homely objects—ones which we hold dear, and in some cases, reveal the often invisible labor performed by women in domestic realms. Featuring works by Liene Bosquê, Amy Gelb, Stephanie Eti Hadad, Amanda Linares, Molly McGreevy, Catalina Rojas, and Nina Surel, the exhibition traces the passage of time through its impact on the body, material possessions, and the spaces we occupy.