Family Portraits

Families grow and merge, shift and realign, relocate and re-establish. Ours is an embracing culture in a flexible society. The Richmond Art Center opened the Community Gallery to the question of just what shape and form families were taking in our community today.

Family Portraits offers an opportunity to see the most contemporary interpretations of what is a Family Portrait. A Family Portrait can freeze a moment in time to show assembled smiling family members. Or a family portrait can be a construct of memories and lore. Our families themselves can be mixed groupings crossing generations and gender, geography and even genus. After all, what would our family be without our pets? In Family Portrait we look at how we see ourselves and our closest ties, be they in the kitchen, in school, in the workplace or on the playing field.

We asked artists throughout California to show us what they made of what makes up today’s family. And the jury found the camera presented a sharp view of parents and siblings, and, naturally, the family dog. But we also found clay and collage and even needle and thread render family trees and collected memories.

Here is an exhibition of who we are with whom we share our lives.

Image: Toby Tover, “Lollipops in Tokyo”