The pose is instantly familiar – the outstretched arm, the head tilted up to look at the mobile phone. He's taking a selfie.
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Except "he" is a sculptural parody of Michelangelo's David created by Daniel Vukovljak. This is the Canberra Contemporary Art Space's annual members' show and this year the theme is "selfie".
On another wall, a face appears to peek out of the colourful tentacles of a large collage artwork from Irina Zarebski.
Gallery director David Broker said when the theme of the members' show was first announced, he braced himself for a flood of selfie entries from Canberra's artists.
"I was thinking 'Oh my god, we're in danger of getting just a whole lot of selfies'. So I was very happy to get home yesterday and see that there weren't really any – but they were comments on the selfie and taking the piss really; that everyone has really taken a step back and gone for a much more serious look at self-portraiture."
The gallery's program manager Alexander Boynes said several works in the exhibition were a playful take on the concept of the selfie – such as a wry little homage to Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly artwork in which Ned was depicted as a Nokia mobile phone sitting on a horse.
"It's a very funny play on an Australian idea of a selfie and what it means to be an Australian consumer in the 21st century. And of course I love the take on Michelangelo's David taking a selfie, that's hilarious."
Another piece – the gleaming sculpture of a head with two faces – has the polished look of beads but is created entirely from shopping bags wrapped in video tape.
Gallery manager Sabrina Baker said self-portraits had changed dramatically. "The self-portrait has really evolved from being an art study where you're your own model because you're all you've got. All of a sudden it's this immediate social media norm."
The question of whether the selfie is a modern artform is a divisive one, but Boynes said selfies were part of the digital ephemera of modern day life. "Because of our 24-hour news cycle, there's an insane amount of information flooding out. As soon as you see [something], it's out of fashion. As soon it's posted it's old," he said.
"So that, for me, is what's really interesting now; how people in this show approach that digital immediacy, where everything is instantly out of date, with something that burns much more slowly."
#selfie opens Friday 15 August at 6pm at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Gorman House Arts Centre, Braddon. It runs until Saturday August 16. There is a $500 prize for the best artwork.