The Patient Looks Back: Portraits of My Therapist brings together a three-year body of work by Catskill-based painter Joyce Polance. Each portrait is based on a photograph taken during one of Polance’s monthly in-person therapy sessions.

Therapy usually directs attention toward the patient while the therapist remains comparatively opaque. In these paintings, Polance reverses that structure, making the therapist the subject of prolonged scrutiny. Likeness does not resolve the images; it increases the pressure between recognition, intimacy, and the limits of what looking can reveal.

Polance works in oil entirely with her fingers, building, pressing, and partially removing wet layers of color. The paintings move between precise observation and material disruption, allowing the face to remain recognizable without becoming fully knowable.

The exhibition is on view September 17–October 10, 2026, at the James W. Palmer III Gallery in the College Center at Vassar College.

An opening reception with the artist will be held Thursday, September 24, from 5:00–7:00 p.m. Polance will give an artist talk Saturday, October 3, from 4:00–5:00 p.m. The exhibition, reception, and artist talk are free and open to the public. No reservations or tickets are required.

Sponsored by the Palmer Gallery.

This event is free and open to the public.