Love, Laughter, Tears: An Artist’s Guide to Emotions examines the relationship between art and emotion across various cultures and time periods. Despite their differences in background, the range of artworks showcased in this exhibition demonstrate that human emotion is a unifying and universal factor.

In the aftermath of the pandemic and amid growing societal divisions, emotions, empathy, and self-reflection hold great significance. Emotion and expression have always been integral to the creative process of artmaking. Artists convey emotions through their use of color, shapes, symbolism, and text. Artworks can reflect an individual's emotions or the wider mood of a culture or historical period, shedding light on events and their impacts on people. The power of art lies in its ability to communicate these feelings and messages, fostering conversations and understanding among individuals and communities.

The works of art traveling in this exhibition are from the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. They include paintings, prints, photographs, and film by artists such as Kiyoshi Saito, Stephen Shames, Gabriel Sunday Tenabe, Nell Blane, and others.