"What is the self?" asks Max Beckmann and adds, "All my life I have been trying to become some kind of self." For Beckmann the "self is the great veiled mystery of the world." In "Me, Myself & I," First Street Gallery artists explore this very theme in their confrontation of self.

It is in the Northern Renaissance that self-portraiture first ascends to the realm of important subject matter. The interior lives of Van Eyck and Durer and later Rembrandt and Van Gogh are revealed in their self-portraits. As we approach the 21st Century, the self is illuminated in many complex ways: it can be exposed in its full emotional and psychological range or it can be obscured as narrator or protagonist; it can be seen only as a body part or can be disguised with masks to shed light on other parts of the self.

"Me, Myself & I" will be exhibited at First Street Gallery from September 9th to October 4th. The opening reception is on Wednesday, September 10th from 6 to 8.