This Particular Day of June explores the genre of self-portraiture in relation to time, featuring three artists known for a conceptual approach to their work, and strong interest in language and seriality.

New York artist Alejandro Cesarco presents The Ramones (An Autobiography) (2008), a text work featuring a song list, organized in chronological order, of every Ramones song that begins with the pronoun I, revealing a hidden narrative expressed by the legendary punk ensemble. In this chronological form, viewers are left to form relationships between the stark and economic titles, which at times seem to flow as a logical statement (I Just Want To Have Something To Do, I Wanted Everything) and at other times seem contradictory or non-sequential (I Won’t Let It Happen, I Can’t Control Myself; I’m Affected, I Can’t Make It On Time).

Germaine Koh’s Self-portrait is an ongoing project started in 1994. The work exists as a single oil painting that she updates periodically. Painting directly over the previous image, Koh creates a new image each time, while recording the painting’s history through photographs displayed next to the painting on a clipboard. Both modest in scale and monumental in time, the work undoes itself with each progressive gesture.

Micah Lexier’s Self Portrait as a wall divided proportionally between this black type representing life lived and the remaining white space representing life to come, based on statistical life expectancy is likewise ongoing, first exhibited in 1998. The text that comprises work itself is sized differently each time it is installed, as determined by the physical dimensions of the gallery space. Contrary to expectation, the ratio between the black text and the white wall do not change but rather continue to reflect the age of the artist at the time the work was first conceived.

While works in the exhibition contrast in scale and material, the conceptual similarities between them resonate within contemporary art practices that often privilege serial forms of production over the making of a unique object while simultaneously disrupting traditional expectations of self-portraiture.

This exhibition is made possible with the generous additional support of Emily Carr University of Art & Design and the Kelowna Art Gallery. Special thanks to Carlos Mendes, David MacWilliam, Liz Wylie and Sarah Campbell.