The Things We Keep brings together the works of Cher Pruys and Aurora Abzug in an exhibition that celebrates the emotional significance of everyday life. Through distinct artistic approaches, both artists transform familiar moments and ordinary objects into reflections of memory, identity, and human connection. Their works remind us that the experiences which shape us most profoundly are often found not in extraordinary events, but in the quiet details that accompany our daily lives.

For Cher Pruys, painting becomes a means of preserving the fleeting moments that define a lifetime. Working in hyperrealism, she captures memories, rituals, and seemingly ordinary encounters with remarkable sensitivity, inviting viewers to pause and reconsider the emotional weight carried by everyday experience. Her paintings explore the passage of time and the ways personal memories accumulate to shape who we are, transforming intimate recollections into universal reflections on the human experience.
Aurora Abzug approaches autobiography through the language of objects. Stuffed animals, food, domestic interiors, and familiar symbols drawn from television and digital culture become visual metaphors for relationships, comfort, longing, and selfhood. Her representational paintings distill the rhythms of contemporary life into carefully observed compositions, revealing how the objects we surround ourselves with become quiet witnesses to our emotions and experiences. Through these familiar icons, she seeks moments of softness and connection within an increasingly mediated world.
Together, Pruys and Abzug reveal that memory is carried not only through people and events, but also through the objects, places, and rituals that accompany us throughout our lives. One artist preserves the emotional resonance of lived moments, while the other uncovers the stories embedded within the ordinary things we cherish. Their works invite viewers to recognize that the familiar is never insignificant; it is where identity quietly takes shape.
The Things We Keep is an invitation to slow down and rediscover the poetry of everyday life. It celebrates the beauty of what remains after moments have passed—the memories we revisit, the objects we hold onto, and the quiet fragments of experience that continue to accompany us. Together, Cher Pruys and Aurora Abzug remind us that these seemingly ordinary traces become the lasting markers of who we are and the lives we have lived.