The current exhibitions by three Sydney-based artists aim to "investigate the capacities of the contemporary photographic portrait". Each presents very different approaches to "the portrait" and each interrogates any viewer preconceptions of what constitutes a portrait. The premise for the three exhibitions is an interesting one. The results vary but one certainly is opened to three very different ways of looking at the art of portraiture.

Laura Moore's Framed is a series of eight face mounted pigment prints. Each image is of a nude figure (variously male or female) confined within a glass box constructed by the artist. The subjects are, we are told, all artists, and this is an important conceptual layer that Moore invests in this series. The space within each box is tight and the artist's subject is forced to constrict him- or herself so that the entire body is able to be accommodated within the box. The necessary constriction is such that the bodies are pushed right against the front panel of the box. The flesh on the glass is squashed, distorted into awkward shapes that evoke a form of physical vulnerability that is nevertheless visually seductive.

Moore understands the value of dramatic visual contrasts. Her figures are highlighted against a rich black ground that places them almost in high relief that is the more telling because of the bodily contortions. The lessons of Caravaggio's (1571 – 1610) use of light are clearly not lost on Moore. The visual drama is given conceptual and thematic equivalence that is both relevant and attractive.

The artist's placement of her subjects into deliberately physically uncomfortable poses raises the question of the role of both artist ("auteur") and viewer and here, the role of the portrait artist and the role of the viewer when looking at a portrait. Moore posits questions of exploitation and vulnerability and by making her images life-size, forces real confrontation with the viewer. Her images are beautifully made, visually forceful and compelling. Her interrogative stance is clear and it is a pleasure to see such an aesthetically intelligent mind at work.

Yiorgo Yiannopoulos' Love Shack is a conceptually obtuse and visually opaque look at the question of portraiture. The 14 works on display appear to be sparsely elegant images of torn and discarded scraps of paper, embossed onto white paper. The images are also white(-ish) so there is a very subtle, almost minimalist play with white-on-white that certainly holds some attraction. However, at the bottom right-hand edge of the paper are black textual descriptors that introduce another element or layer into an otherwise ostensibly straightforward aesthetic exercise.

The texts are direct and objective. Some examples will suffice – "My height, aggressive, ungrateful. Not a kisser"; "Suit, very beautiful. His third that day. Not a kisser": "Wet, confused, blue eyes. Offered to reciprocate. Not a kisser". What is the viewer to make of these in relation to the images they accompany? The objective stance of the text has a pseudo-scientific guise as if the artist is collecting data about an object related to some sort of research. It is necessary to go to the essay in the accompanying brochure to discover that the artist has indeed set as his thesis an exploration of questions of male-to-male sexual intimacy in public places, here public toilets. He is not just researcher and recorder but also participant in the sexual acts he "records". His participation apparently includes cleaning the residue of his and other's activities with toilet paper that is then put through a number of processes to end up the embossed image that we see on the walls of the gallery.

None of the preceding is at all clear to the viewer (innocent or not) from what is on display. Yes, the combination of text and image raises questions but does not lead one into the necessary dialogue that may aid in understanding more than what the artist has chosen to provide to his viewers. In relation to the overall premise of the exhibition I wonder what Yiannopoulos is proposing? Is this self-portraiture or a sort of undercover group portrait of a particular group of anonymous sitters? I don't know. An undisclosed thesis accompanied by images whose conceptual opacity is also a barrier remains for me an indulgent exercise exemplary of the loss of the necessary objectivity required of the good researcher.

That Jumping Guy is fun and clever. Louise Baker's installation is enticing and exuberant. One cannot help but be taken in by the joyous repetition of the image of "that jumping guy" on every possible surface. Repetition infers the fugitive nature of image-making, the implication of the (im-)possibility of fixing the individual in a single image in the contemporary world. Repetition also speaks of the reality of mass communication to multiple (and unknown) audiences in multiple (and unknown) forms.

Baker creates a domestic tableau whose unifying element is "that jumping guy". Everything – walls, furniture, crockery, clothes, toys, lollipops – is decorated with the artist's signature and signifying image. What could be seen as obsessive is rather an incisive means of delivering the artist's concepts as alluded to previously. That this is done with humour aligned with visual panache results in an embracing experience for the viewer.