The portrait is a classic theme in art, one that sometimes seems as though it has nothing left to surprise us. In recent years, however, many artists have confronted this very art form, using any number of unique techniques and ways of reworking and relooking at this classic symbol. From portraits made of food or maps to figures that come from a cassette tape or even profiles that emerge from a landscape these are portraits of today s people and reveal the anxieties, the irony, the passions and the vision of our current world.