SELF explores portraiture in any media, both  traditional and non-traditional. It also sets the stage for contemporary artists to look back onto art history and perhaps find some new meaning or a voice in one’s own pursuit of artistic freedom and struggle for identity in our modern day society.

Portraiture has been created in many forms throughout art history -- from Albrecht Dürer's famous self portrait, where he depicted himself as Jesus Christ, Frida Kahlo's compelling self portrait paintings, which expressed the feminine quality of truth, reality, cruelty and suffering, to more modern interpretations of identity and portraiture by Chuck Close’s photo realistic style and Cindy Sherman’s film stills and staged photo sets. SELF will take a look beyond the surface and peel back the layers for self –exploration.

HOW WILL WE DO IT?
Under SELF we will launch several initiatives, virtual and real-world exhibitions and events. They will interact with each other under the larger umbrella SELF.

Load up your photos on Flickr. We created an open group called SELF.
Join SELF on Flickr

Load up your sound bytes, films and animations on YouTube. We created an open group called SELF.
Join SELF on YouTube

The SELF components contain:

1. An online presence for video and audio samples, dealing with self rendering, portraiture in oral and film media, using YouTube.
2. An online gallery and registration form for call-outs and a permanent online presence for digital photos, dealing with the portraiture, using Art Outlet’s Flickr gallery.
3. Art exhibitions and events, containing 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional art, oral sound bytes and poetry, film, music and performance art focusing on various components of SELF.

For our first SELF exhibition, we will focus on the self portrait. Both visual and multimedia artists are encouraged to participate in SELF. If you have a photo, sound byte or movie to share, load it up to our groups.