What happens when three artists share certain passions? For years, Marcia Marcus, Alice Neel, and Sylvia Sleigh shared portrait sitters, participated in public art discussions together, and put their work in conversation. Art by the three women now appears in the exhibition “The Human Situation,” which features paintings of loved ones, friends, and acquaintances. The show’s theme “adds a certain poignancy to portraits,” says Sleigh. Feminism is implicit in these works, which express its values. “I have always wanted to paint as a woman, but not as the oppressive and power-mad world thought a woman should paint,” said Neel, who died in 1984. The exhibition also explores intimate self-portraiture, the nude, and the still life. —Carolina de Armas