The gallery takes inspiration from two impactful and powerful self-portrait artists: Frida Kahlo and Cindy Sherman. These women, though using the same medium of work, used it in different ways. While Kahlo made self-portrait art to talk about her life story, her opinions on public and private affairs, and more, Sherman used it in a way to give commentary on how the world sees women and how she now sees the world. From this source of inspiration, I created the show prompt:

"There are multitudes of struggles that you face every day. From social media to cliques, even extending to climate change and rising political tension, a horde of pressures affect how someone can look at themselves and the world. How have outside sources manipulated your view of yourself? Has it been beneficial? Detrimental? Have they changed the way you look at the world around you?”

After the prompt was designed, I began outreach in early November 2021 in search of artists. I communicated with local high schools and colleges in search of self-portrait work that followed the prompt. In total, I received 38 works by the start of installation, on March 23rd.

I designed various elements for the gallery as well. Physical designs included the show write-up, various posters to publicize the show, and plaques that hung next to every work. On the plaques was also a QR code that viewers of the gallery could scan which lead directly to individual web pages that gave more information about the artist and their work.

In addition to the various web pages for the artists, I created an overall website that allowed guests to tour the gallery virtually, read more about myself and the gallery, and what the process of creating an installation was like.

To view the various gallery websites, please click the links below.