BERLIN.- One subject and three artists; they all have their own story to tell and each has their own unique approach to this classic genre of art: portraiture. While all three artists have taken concepts from two different time periods and fused them together in a unique combination, it is the portrait that becomes the common thread for this exhibition. The media in which each artist creates covers a full and varied gamut and illustrates the complexity of the present by way of a vehicle of the past.

Tilo Uischner from Germany presents his works titled, 'the disappearance of childhood' with a unique blending of the old world craft of intarsia or marquetry and the contemporary material of acrylics to bring his imagery to life. In each portrait, the subject’s garb is formed with dozens of carefully spliced wood veneers and their bodies are deftly painted; together they form a truly life like image. In every work, Tilo captures a moment that leaves the viewer open to interpret in his or her own very personal way.

Kim Alsbrooks originally from Charleston, South Carolina, plays with the lore of the Old South in her presentation 'white trash family'. Her portraits are of the politicians, aristocrats and society of the Confederacy. Delicately painted ovals in oil are presented not on ivory as they once were, but on found objects. Literally trash, flattened beer cans, fast food wrappers and the like become the 'canvases' that these new portraits shine from. This format pushes to the forefront the concept of how with after the fall of the southern states and grand plantations as they were, the stories and the legends continue to live on in time.

Elisabeth Belliveau exhibits her 'corrie street' portraits in the ages old art of embroidery. Her works are not the in the form of classic family tree types but are of a special group of personalities from a long running British TV soap. She mixes a traditional media with pop culture and each portrait is painstakingly reproduced in fiber, a unique dimensional caricature portrait that mirrors the show’s characters that are molded by their daily scripts.