From Susan Aurinko’s article for New City Art:
The always poignant Jess Dugan shows a group of portraits from their “Family Pictures” series. Jess, a non-binary recent parent engages with their baby, their partner, their mother and their mother’s partner. The unequivocal statement here is that family means love, in whatever way it appears, and should thus be honored. Tom Merilion also reaches into family for his touching narrative of love, interspersing some of his late mother’s art with images of his aging father to portray devotion and the pain of loss in a family.