Dipika Kohli used a black Sharpie and long strips of white paper to portray three strong women who engraved their path in history by breaking gender barriers and other social norms.

Alia E. El-Bermani used oil on panel to highlight realistic beauty. Jacob Cooley painted himself and close friends and family, asking them to hide behind a smile, only to reveal it's impossible to hide individuals' identities.

Those are a preview of the interesting moments in "People You May Know" officially opening Friday at the Durham Arts Council. The unconventional portraits raise questions such as, "What is community?" and "What is beautiful in this day and age?"

"I just think it is important that we serve as a community center for people to make connections with each other," said Barclay McConnell, artist services manager for the council. "And I think people coming into this exhibit opening will. They are going to see friends and neighbors on the walls."

In addition to the works of 11 Triangle artists, the show includes the "Community Portrait of Durham," a photograph taken of a human version of Durham's red, yellow and blue flag.

The exhibition, coordinated by McConnell, is also the first to be curated in-house by the Arts Council in its 56 years of programming. Usually, a committee of art professionals decide what to hang in council shows. In this show, McConnell chose the works following a vision to find Triangle-based artists with work that demonstrates non-traditional and realistic portraits that mirror the area's diverse community, she said.

The show includes photography, paintings, woodcut prints, and Kohili's black Sharpie portraits of historical women drawn on what appears to be strips of butcher paper.

Kohili's series, "women firsts," includes Pauli Murray, the first black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest; Juanita M. Kreps, the nation's first commerce secretary; and Ethel Clay Price, the first graduate of the Watts Hospital training school for nurses.

Cooley veered from his well-known landscapes to create a grid of nine portraits that includes him, family and friends. Cooley said he had done a couple of portraits when he heard about the council's show.

He asked his subjects to relax and show no emotion while they posed, he said, so they couldn't hide behind a smile, a sneer or anything that might veil who they really are. What he discovered, he said, was that is difficult for people to divorce themselves from their individual's essence, even momentarily.

El-Bermani, a member of the Portrait Society of America, said, in general, during the 1970s and '80s the art scene looked down upon portrait work.

"If you were a representational painter, you weren't pushing the envelope," she said. The modern art movement pushed representational painters to go beyond just making the standard portrait, challenging artists to delve deeper into the layers of meaning and concepts behind the work.

For example, El-Bermani's work includes an oil painting of two women looking into a mirror in a public restroom.

"I like to celebrate the beauty of the ordinary," she said.

El-Bermani said what has impressed her most about the exhibit is that it reaches beyond and connects the standard art pockets that usually stay-to-themselves within individual cities, such as Raleigh and Durham.

"There are pockets of art communities that are pretty supportive within themselves," she said. "This is the first show where I have seen somebody trying to connect those art communities."