Image: Ben Brown Fine Arts, London
Ben Brown Fine Arts is presenting 'José Parlá: Engrams' in London from 10 June to 31 July 2026, a solo exhibition of new paintings by the Brooklyn-based artist that links landscape, memory and neuroscience. The gallery describes the show as the first iteration of a broader project titled ENGRAMS, which it expands as an acronym for Exploring Neighborhoods, Gestures Recording Archived Memory Spaces.
At the center of the exhibition is Parlá’s idea of the engram as a physical trace memory leaves in the brain, a “living, ever-shifting pattern” that changes each time it is recalled. The gallery’s text frames memory not as retrieval but reconstruction, and presents that process as the conceptual basis for the series. Parlá’s quoted statement in the exhibition material underscores the same idea: “With every stroke I record a life lived in transit: gestures become maps, and maps become the language of remembrance.”
Three places inform the works in 'Engrams': the sunsets of Havana, Cuba; the forests of Hakone, Japan; and the urban corridors of New York City. According to the gallery, Parlá departed from an Old Master model of repeated direct observation and instead visited each site only once before painting from memory. That reversal, the gallery says, allowed the act of remembering itself — with its distortions, shifts and recombinations — to shape the compositions.
The exhibition also connects Parlá’s studio practice to his current residency at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute, where he is this year’s Alan Kanzer Artist Resident. Ben Brown Fine Arts says the research behind ENGRAMS is being developed during that residency and forms part of Parlá’s ongoing exploration of dialogue between art and neuroscience. The gallery notes that a recent lecture by Parlá, given as part of the residency, can be viewed through the exhibition page.
The works listed for the exhibition include 'Archived Sentience', 'Gestural Engram', 'Kinesthetic Memory Field', 'Interior Landscapes' and 'Engram Study 1 - Afterimage of Havana', all dated 2026. The page also identifies 'Gestural Engram' as acrylic paint and collage on canvas, indicating the material range within the series. Together, the titles suggest a body of work focused on sensation, recall and the translation of remembered experience into painterly form.
The exhibition is presented at Ben Brown Fine Arts in London, with the gallery’s address listed as 12 Brook’s Mews, London W1K 4DG. The website identifies 'José Parlá: Engrams' as a current exhibition and gives the run dates as 10 June to 31 July 2026. Ben Brown Fine Arts also includes a publication titled 'Engrams' and an interview with Parlá dated 22 May 2026 on the exhibition page.
