Bristol Art Museum Explores Presence and Memory in The Company We Keep

The Bristol Art Museum will present The Company We Keep: Presence, Memory, and the Things That Remain from Sun., Oct. 4, through Sun., Nov. 22, 2026. An opening reception will take place on Sun., Oct. 4, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Featuring work by Victoria Crayhon, Kathy Hodge, William Collin Kennedy, Gabrielle LoTurco, Jeff Smudde, C. A. Stigliano, Grace Taşel, and Sarah Valinezhad, the exhibition considers how people and places remain with us through objects, images, gestures, and memory.

A machine may hold evidence of the person who used it. A portrait can bring us face to face with someone while leaving much of their inner life unknown. A photograph can preserve a place and suggest the lives that have passed through it. Across different materials and approaches, the artists explore presence as something we can experience even when its source is no longer physically before us.

The Company We Keep invites visitors to look closely at the relationships they carry and consider how those relationships shape the way they see the world.