Artist Millee Tibbs pairs snapshots of herself as a young girl with nearly identical photographs of herself as an adult in the series This is a picture of me, part of the exhibit “Self and Others” at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery.

It’s often said that art is a form of self-expression. But what happens when the “self” doing the expressing is actually many different selves — some defined by social and family ties, others determined by age or education and still others dictated by biology and genetics? At what point does self-expression morph into something more richly multi-dimensional?

“Self and Others,” a thought-provoking exhibit at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery, offers some surprising and, at times, unsettling answers.

Rather than making traditional self-portraits, the show’s six contributors explore the mysteries of identity in ways that happily blur a host of social, sexual and psychic boundaries, including those separating men and women, parents and children and even our adult and childhood selves. Along the way, they create faux family snapshots, assume the personas of famous artists and writers and play at being amateur detectives in the tradition of Nancy Drew and Pippi Longstocking.

Granted, play-acting and costume-wearing have a long history in the visual arts, especially in the realms of portraiture and self-portraiture. (Rembrandt, for example, could have opened a haberdashery with all the hats he sports in his self-portraits.)

But the artists in “Self and Others” take this trend toward artifice and role-playing a few steps further. They also have an advantage Rembrandt didn’t have: computers, digital cameras and other electronic gear that can easily erase distinctions between fantasy and reality.

A good example is Millee Tibbs’ This is a picture of me series, which pairs snapshots of Tibbs as a young girl with nearly identical photographs of Tibbs as an adult. In one photo, a 4- or-5-year-old Tibbs poses with the family dog. Hanging next it is another photo showing Tibbs, now fully grown, wearing the same clothes and — miraculously — posing with the same dog.

Other pairings capture similar back-to-the-future moments: the younger Tibbs preening for the camera while gabbing on a kitchen telephone, followed by the older Tibbs standing in the same kitchen and gabbing on the same telephone; the younger Tibbs sitting glumly on a backyard swing, followed by a pouty-faced older Tibbs sitting on the same backyard swing.

Several works venture into edgier territory. In one, a snapshot of the younger Tibbs lolling happily and nakedly in a tub is paired with a similar shot of Tibbs as an adult. The result is both funny — the grown-up Tibbs barely fits in her old kid-sized bathtub — and disquieting.

After all, if you can’t trust a family snapshot, what can you trust?

A similar Zelig-like effect can be found in the work of Annu Palakunnathu Matthew. In her An Indian from India series, Matthew, who was born in England but raised in India, pairs 19th-century portraits of American Indians with portraits of herself wearing traditional clothing from India.

Like Tibbs, Matthew exactly matches the poses, facial expressions and the backgrounds of the original photographs. Yet while Tibbs has the advantage of impersonating her younger self, Matthew is impersonating men and women who lived more than a century ago.

The result is a technical tour de force — Matthew even reproduces the faded sepia-toned look of the original photographs — that also works as a sly commentary on the racial and cultural stereotypes embedded in the word “Indian.” (Zelig, by the way, is the title character of a 1983 Woody Allen movie about a man who mysteriously pops up in old photographs and newsreels.)

Linn Underhill, a New York photographer who teaches at Colgate University, takes a slightly different approach. Her elegant black-and-white portraits are based on the work of George Platt Lynes, a well-known fashion and celebrity photographer from the 1930s and ’40s.

In particular, Lynes was famous for his portraits of male artists and writers such as Orson Welles and T.S. Eliot, which he infused with more than a touch of homoerotic glamour. Underhill, meanwhile, adds to the gender-bending by rephotographing some of Lynes’ most famous portraits with herself — sporting short hair and plenty of vintage menswear — in the starring role.

While Tibbs, Matthew and Underhill all take their cues from photographic sources, the show’s other artists are more eclectic. Jesse Burke’s Masculinity series, for example, might have been inspired by an Hemingway short story. It consists of a dozen or so color photographs, many depicting Burke’s male friends and relatives doing “guy stuff” such as hunting, drinking and hanging out. Other images include close-ups of trees, flowers and — ominously — several dead animals.

Sage Sohier’s photographs, meanwhile, will resonate with anyone who grew up in the shadow of a successful or domineering parent. Sohier’s principal subject is her mother, a former Vogue model who intimidated Sohier as a child and who still putters around her Washington, D.C., mansion as if she’s waiting for her pal Richard Avedon to drop by for a fashion shoot.

Perhaps the show’s quirkiest entry is Girl & Bird Detective Co., a rambling film-noir-style installation by Amy Lovera. As Lovera explains in an accompanying artist’s statement, she’s a reluctant social activist who has trouble actually showing up for rallies and picket lines.

Her solution: invent a fictional persona as a crusading girl-detective, find a faithful sidekick (in this case, a chatty bird who shows up on her doorstep one morning) and chronicle their struggles against greedy corporations and crooked politicians through a combination of confessional writing, drawings, watercolors and photographs.

Weird? Yep. But it’s also sweetly funny and charming. (And how many works of contemporary art can you say that about?)

Lovera is also one of several artists in “Self and Others” with Rhode Island ties. Three of the show’s contributors — Tibbs, Burke and Lovera — are products of the MFA program at the Rhode Island School of Design and are currently based in Providence. Matthew lives in Providence and teaches at the University of Rhode Island, while Sohier taught at RISD in the mid-1990s.

Finally, kudos to Bell Gallery director Jo-Ann Conklin for mounting such a fine show using (mostly) local talent.

“Self and Others” continues through July 8 at the David Winton Bell Gallery, List Art Center, 64 College St., Providence. Hours: Mon.-Fri. 11-4 and Sat.-Sun. 1-4. Contact: (401) 863-2932.

bvansicl@projo.com