Reception: Friday, September 5, 5-7PM

Composed entirely of Gen-Z artists, this exhibition pushes the boundaries of self-expression and portraiture as shaped by the internet and new technologies. Growing up with unrestricted access to the internet, the online world is just as influential to Gen-Z as is the AFK (Away from keyboard) world. The Self Imagined believes it’s time to confront this reality.

While the selected works build upon developments in the contemporary art world, they also serve to inhabit their niches online. Using painting, sculpture, and video, these young artists illustrate Gen-Z’s ability to navigate inside and outside cyberspace. Themes explored in this exhibition include emergent ideas of digital skins as tools to understand ourselves; interrogating the societal effect of face filters; art disguised as memes and “brain rot”; and furry art as a form of artmaking and a functional part of a lifestyle.

By utilizing our familiarity with the internet for creative expression, this group declares that this can be the vanguard for 21st-century art.

Artists are Aubrie Testa, Bun, Dozzy and Baycun, Elan Warren, Elliott Moore, Ivy Howard, Katie Dobberpuhl, Lauryn Tyler, Madeline McGann, meowgirl300, Michel Darling, Niko Mlynarčík, Noah Peairson, Oscar Hunt, Paola Silva, Piero Roque, and scrawnyraccoon.

The Self Imagined is curated by Piero Roque, Montserrat Galleries Curatorial Assistant.