The National Self Portrait Exhibition was born in 2005 at then 33 Collective Gallery as a way to explore and document the long history and practice of self portraiture in contemporary art. Each past exhibition consisted of juried works for gallery display and for online exhibition. All works were selected from a national call to artists by guest jurors. From the beginning, the exhibition included works ranging from representational and abstraction to conceptual ideas of the self.

This year, the National Self-Portrait Exhibition comes to an end as it reaches its tenth year anniversary.  Since I started the annual show, I always envisioned it as a ten year project.  Despite that the exhibition has become highly popular and attracts an increasing number of people each year, it has reached its intended time span.  To me as organizer and now curator of the Annual National Self Portrait Exhibition, seeing it end makes me feel proud of the close to 1,000 self-portraits we featured in its ten year run.  The National Self Portrait Exhibition provided a national laboratory for the exploration and visual representation of the “self”.

To celebrate the 10th and Final exhibition, I have personally invited a selection of artists from the last ten years.  This year there was no call for artists or open submissions. Instead, it is an exhibition titled “Curator’s Choice” celebrating one decade of contemporary self-portraiture.  The names of the artists will be announced soon.  Please join me on July 18th at the 10,000 sf gallery of the Zhou B Art Center (second floor) to say good bye to one of my favorite exhibitions of each year.

Special thanks to all the artists that have been part of this amazing ten year project!!!

~THE END~