The Patient Looks Back: Portraits of My Therapist

The Patient Looks Back presents Joyce Polance’s portraits of her therapist, painted from photographs taken during monthly in-person sessions. Reversing therapy’s direction of attention, the series turns the patient’s gaze toward the figure who typically observes while remaining partially opaque. Polance works in oil entirely with her fingers, building, pressing, and disrupting the image through repeated layers. Likeness does not resolve these paintings; it increases the tension between recognition, intimacy, and uncertainty. At Vassar College’s Palmer Gallery, the exhibition runs September 17 through October 10, with an opening reception September 24, 5–7 PM, and an artist talk October 3, 4–5