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Equity Gallery is pleased to present It Could Be You: Portraiture in a Constructed World, a comprehensive group exhibition of contemporary portraiture juried by Hyeseung Marriage-Song, Beverly McNeil, and Patricia Watwood. The show features +30 international multidisciplinary artists whose artwork explores both the purpose and limits of portraiture, identity, and the self in the contemporary digital age.

Somewhere between the introduction of cheap camcorders and the proliferation of smart phones we became distrustful of our body鈥檚 ability to mediate directly with the physical world. To a large extent we have exchanged the sensual perceptions emanating from our surroundings for simulated experiences that mitigate reality through camera lenses and digitalized imagery. Once understood to be aide-m茅moirs of life鈥檚 lived experiences, the media is reality鈥攁 reality comprising instantly sharable content validated or refuted by social media emojis.  

That鈥檚 a risky way to construct one鈥檚 universe. How can we hope to fix an identity, let alone one informed by ethical principles,  on a mutating digital stage that is subject to the whims of marketing algorithms and bots on a mission? Given present conditions, it鈥檚 no wonder that our instinct to ascertain 鈥渨hat鈥檚 real鈥� has devolved into an addicting stalk for pleasure hits that never quite satiate an appetite weaned on spectacle.  

That said, can we stake out what is abiding, true and stable about us and our fellows? In an increasingly alarming and chaotic era, art that depicts what is actually there and recognizable is defiant---and nothing could be more necessary and reassuring at the moment than simply showing what we actually look like (and mean) to each other.