Support WBUR2026 Fall Arts GuidesSuzanne Jackson, "Migration," 1998. (Courtesy the artist; Ortuzar, New York; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photo by Timothy Doyon)How do we pass down memories to those we love most and those who need to better understand who we are? Across Greater Boston this fall, art exhibitions are ruminating on intimate moments and experiences that are familiar and unique. At the Rose Art Museum, artist Jenna Gribbon creates nude portraits of loved ones in everyday scenes as a means of capturing a deeper understanding of the people she cares about. Over at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Elisa Hamilton turns an heirloom artwork into an evolutionary artistic process infused with ancestry and familial history. “Uri Aran” at the MIT List Visual Arts Center converts simple objects into shared languages.'Jenna Gribbon: Entwined'Rose Art MuseumThrough Jan. 3Jenna Gribbon, "Admiration for the way she occupies a chair," 2022. (Courtesy of the artist and Fredericks & Freiser, New York)“Entwined” at the Rose Art Museum marks the first solo exhibition of oil paintings by the Knoxville-born and Brooklyn-based artist. Jenna Gribbon paints figurative works with impressionistic strokes and vivid hues. She depicts her partner, herself, family and friends often nude, with their gazes staring strikingly ahead. The figures are typically posed in strange positions, like hunched over, putting on a sock, or standing topless in front of a bright light with a dog staring at them. The Rose Art Museum presents more than 40 works created between 2001 and the present. The exhibition ruminates on Gribbon’s intimate portrayals of those she loves and how her work emphasizes how “love itself structures how we see, understand, and define one another,” according to the exhibition description.'The Book of Esther' & 'Michal Rovner: Esther Scrolls'Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumThrough Jan. 18Purim is a Jewish holiday celebrating how Jewish people were saved from death by Queen Esther in ancient Persia, as told in the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is examining the ways the Book of Esther was interpreted by Jewish and Christian communities in the Dutch Republic in the 1600s through two contemporaneous exhibits.Aert de Gelder, "Esther and Mordecai," about 1685. (Courtesy Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence)“The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt” features 39 works from Rembrandt van Rijn and his contemporaries as well as textiles, decorative arts and ceremonial objects connected with Purim. “Michal Rovner: Esther Scrolls” showcases works by contemporary artist Michal Rovner as a response to the Esther story. Rovner studied megillahs (scrolls), handwritten in ink on parchment, and created three of her own scrolls reflecting on the story of Esther. One of the works, titled “Esther Scroll: The Kingdom” (2026), is a video projection depicting Esther as light and dark figures sauntering through the Persian palace. “Untitled/Night” (2016), a still from a video Rovner took 10 years ago of a jackal she heard at night, is on display on the museum’s façade.'Naoko Matsubara's Woodblock Worlds'Museum of Fine Arts, BostonSept. 5-May 16Naoko Matsubara, "Flute," 1974. (Courtesy the artist, Francis Welch Fund, Towles Contemporary Art Fund, and Edward S. Morse Memorial Fund; photo Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)The 89-year-old Japanese-Canadian printmaker Naoko Matsubara develops vibrant woodblock prints inspired by nature, motherhood and performance. Born in Kyoto and now based in Ontario, she studied at the Kyoto Academy of Fine Arts and spent time in Boston in the 1960s. (She actually met her husband at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts during this time.) The MFA will display nearly 30 works from its own collection as well as loans from the artist, spanning her entire seven-decade career.'Son Lux and Alex Cook: Out Into Us (Slow Down)'MASS MoCAOpening Sept. 12Son Lux and Alex Cook, "Out Into Us (Slow Down)," film HR, 2026 (in progress). (Courtesy of the artists/MASS MoCA)Academy Award and BAFTA-nominated Son Lux is a New York-based rock band set to release its ninth studio album “Out Into” on Sept. 18. The band, which scored the movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” approaches music with curiosity and doesn’t adhere to the limitations of traditional genre and structure. MASS MoCA will present “Out Into Us (Slow Down),” a video installation capturing the essence of the album’s title track, filmed by video director Alex Cook. The 17-minute film is a purposeful departure from the rapid trend of condensed content on social media. Son Lux and MASS MoCA Records will create a signed, limited edition vinyl of the score for purchase. Son Lux will also perform with New York duo mmeadows at the MASS MoCA on the exhibition’s opening night, Sept. 12.'Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love'Museum of Fine Arts, BostonSept. 26-Jan. 18Suzanne Jackson, "Wind and Water, 1975. (Courtesy the artist; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Ortuzar, New York; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photo by Ruben Diaz.)American visual artist Suzanne Jackson ruminates on the interconnectivity of nature through her otherworldly paintings and mixed-media works. The MFA will display the first retrospective of her full career through more than 60 paintings and drawings. In the 1960s, Jackson became a principal figure in the African American art scene in Los Angeles. The MFA will exhibit three works from this period — “Not Every Clown Lives at the Circus,” “Triplical Communications” and “The American Sampler” — establishing Jackson’s motifs of animals, plants, hands and hearts that symbolize universal love between humans and nature, according to curator Claire Howard. The exhibition explores a wide breadth of her work from early depictions of her dreams through light layers of color to paintings of the majesty of the natural landscapes of California and more recent experimental hanging works inspired by ancestral and cultural history.'Elisa H. Hamilton: Heirlooms'Fitchburg Art MuseumSept. 26-Sept. 19Elisa Hamilton, "Mending Lines," 2026. (Courtesy the artist)“Elisa H. Hamilton: Heirlooms” at the Fitchburg Art Museum centers around community and hope. Boston-based multimedia artist Elisa H. Hamilton creates vibrant paintings with expressive linework and geometric forms. In this exhibition, Hamilton reflects on a handcrafted quilt she inherited from her great-grandmother. She captures the essence of her family’s story through bold contemporary works to honor the legacy of memory. Hamilton was part of the 2021 WBUR ARTery 25 cohort, a series highlighting Greater Boston artists of color transforming the cultural landscape.'90 YEARS'Institute of Contemporary Art/BostonOct. 15-March 7Inside Yayoi Kusama's "Love Is Calling" at the ICA. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)The ICA is celebrating 90 years, and the exhibit “90 YEARS” commemorates the anniversary, exploring nine previous exhibitions and initiatives from the museum’s history. One of the most impactful is “Modern Mexican Painters,” a 1941 exhibition that acquainted American visitors with contemporary Mexican painting and the artists behind the works, including José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. “90 YEARS” also looks back at a 1966 survey of pop art artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol and the premiere of his experimental video “Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” which featured the Velvet Underground. It also includes pieces from the museum's permanent collection, like Yayoi Kusama's "LOVE IS CALLING."'Molly Hatch: Agency'Fuller Craft MuseumOct. 17-October 2028Artist Molly Hatch working on her site-specific installation "Agency." (Courtesy Fuller Craft Museum)Ceramic artist Molly Hatch develops immersive large-scale installations that blend historical practices with contemporary explorations of culture. In the site-specific exhibition “Agency” at Fuller Craft Museum, the Massachusetts-based artist turns the flora, fauna and other symbols of traditional Victorian jewelry motifs into emblems of feminine power, installed so they appear to be crawling up the gallery walls. “Agency” examines symbols previously used to assert male dominance over women in a new light as a means of female freedom. Hatch hopes people question their preconceived notions about symbolism in other aspects of everyday life, outside of this exhibition.'Uri Aran'MIT List Visual Arts CenterOct. 23- Feb. 28Uri Aran, "The Bride," 2025. (Courtesy the artist; Sadie Coles, London; Matthew Brown; and Andrew Kreps Gallery)New York-based multidisciplinary artist Uri Aran explores graphic and linguistic systems and the tensions within them. He develops his own sentimental means of communication through everyday objects like passport photos, doodles and bric-a-brac. MIT’s List Visual Arts Center will display Aran’s first major institutional solo exhibition in the U.S. The exhibition includes new works that feel strange yet recognizable as the artist creates “a shorthand between friends” through his pieces, according to the exhibition description.'Hao Jingban'MIT List Visual Arts CenterOct. 23-Feb. 28Installation view of Hao Jingban's "I Witness" (2025) at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum in 2026. (Courtesy Mori Art Museum and Blindspot Gallery; photo by Kato Ken)Hailing from the Shanxi province of northern China, video artist Hao Jingban develops works reflecting on histories that have been “obscured, forgotten, or actively suppressed — those shaped by political rupture, cultural transition, or generational silence,” according to the exhibition description. She works with her subjects for months and years to earn their trust and allow them to tell their stories the ways they feel comfortable. At MIT’s List Visual Arts Center, her first major solo exhibition in the U.S., her three-channel installation “I Witness” (2025) explores the aftermath of the pandemic through four people experiencing different forms of loss.'Alfonso Ossorio: Line and Lineage'Harvard Art MuseumsOct. 23-April 11Alfonso Ossorio, "The Wracked Child," 1949. (Courtesy Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Frederic and Siena Ossorio)The late Filipino abstract expressionist artist Alfonso Ossorio developed colorful, lively paintings exploring the life cycle and his Catholic upbringing. He studied art history at Harvard University, and the Harvard Art Museums will exhibit his prints, drawings and wax-resist paintings, as well as archival materials from his six-decade career. A companion exhibition, “Knowledge Is Myth: Chimeric Continuities,” will open at Harvard’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Oct. 1-Dec. 13. Both exhibitions include works by Ossorio as well as contemporary artist duo Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien. Camacho and Lien explore post-colonial damage from the Philippines and beyond and take inspiration from Ossorio’s work.'Origami Unfolded'Peabody Essex MuseumDec. 5-Summer 2028Kevin Box and Michael G. LaFosse, "Emerging Peace" (2017), from "Origami in the Garden." (Courtesy Box Studio and Peabody Essex Museum)At the Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center in the Peabody Essex Museum, origami will be showcased as an artform and influence on other disciplines, such as science and engineering. PEM will highlight works by Massachusetts-based artist Michael G. LaFosse, who is heralded as one of the world’s top origami masters, and others. The exhibition will also investigate new technology in origami and design, including folding nano structures and origami-inspired emergency structures.Visual Arts2026 Fall Arts GuidesField Guide to Boston