New York–based artist Arcmanoro Niles talks about the process behind his painting "I Look Just Like My Mama With My Father’s Eyes (Can Time Heal The Guilty)," included in the exhibition "A Place for Me: Figurative Painting Now," on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston March 31 to September 5, 2022.

"A Place for Me" celebrates a new generation of artists at the vanguard of contemporary painting. David Antonio Cruz, Louis Fratino, Doron Langberg, Aubrey Levinthal, Gisela McDaniel, Arcmanoro Niles, Celeste Rapone, and Ambera Wellmann are propelling figurative painting’s recent revival by depicting what they love—their friends, lovers, and family; studio spaces and homes; and the scenes that make up their everyday. Evoking intimacy, community, and the personal in the power to represent oneself in painting, these artists consider the politics of seeing and being seen and how the process of painting might register care, tenderness, fragility, empathy, and resilience. Colorful, surprising, and full of life, "A Place for Me" is a testament to the vitality of contemporary figurative art, reflecting a multitude of styles and approaches to painting through a cross-section of contemporary painting today.