Stepping into a contemporary art museum, visitors expect to see diverse, often unexpected executions of creativity. So when a collection is able to stop visitors in their tracks, it's a special treat.

At The Contemporary Museum, four solo exhibits showing concurrently in the main gallery have that effect. The reason: Though all are rooted in the same theme, each show displays a distinctly unique perspective that, when taken together, powerfully reflects the boundless possibility of creativity.

“;The common denominator of each artist—besides the fact that they all happen to be women—is that of the figure,”; says Jay Jensen, the museum's deputy director of collections and exhibitions. “;But each has a different style and uses a different medium.”;

The work of Taiwan-born New York artist Fay Ku greets visitors as they enter the gallery. Her collection, dominated by delicate, intricate drawings on paper of Asian women and children, are often embellished with traditional Chinese imagery.

Ku's works can be raw in conveying psychological and emotional evolution, as is illustrated in “;Burden Lightens Piecemeal,”; a depiction of a woman dragging a corpse tied to her back. The dead body is being picked by a flock of birds.

Ku's art is dense, eerie and exceptionally beautiful all at once. What's amazing is that the artist approaches the canvas without an agenda. Her work begins with the sketch of a face and evolves from there.

Ku is in residence at the museum through May 23 and usually works afternoons in the gallery.

Allison Schulnik's videos are showing in a side room of the gallery. A Los Angeles painter who applies such thick layers to her canvas that she can carve into the paint, Schulnik's pair of clay animation videos reflects her aesthetic.

“;Forest,”; a music video commissioned by the New York band Grizzly Bear, and “;Hobo Clown”; spotlight characters comprising colorful layers of clay that ooze and transform. Through the painstaking medium of stop-motion animation, Schulnik reveals a talent for depicting tenderness and sensitivity through hobo figures that reference the Wild Man, a mythical character of the medieval era.

Elizabeth Berdann's show, meanwhile, presents the most diversity, understandable given that it surveys the past 20 years of her work.

Much of that art includes depictions of the human body in oils on copper. The artist's work in that medium has its roots in a statement an art professor made about figure painting being dead—that there was nothing new to say. Berdann took that as a challenge and reverted to the classic Baroque style of painting, which enables her to create incredibly detailed and precise images.

Her work is often whimsical in presentation: “;30 of My Worst Features”; encases miniature paintings of body parts into jewelry, as does “;True Love,”; a collection of tiny bondage images made into charms that hang off a bronze chain, posted on the wall in the shape of a heart.

Another body of Berdann's work reflects her life after having a child. Included are some 95 sketches of dogs she and her daughter met while strolling along the streets of New York, and paintings of children in her daughter's circle. Berdann's later works also comment with humor on the burgeoning technological frontier.

Sculptor Judy Fox, also of New York, rounds out the gallery showcase with works that reference legends, fairy tales and myths.

“;Lakshmi,”; a depiction of a child in an Indian headdress, references the Hindu goddess of prosperity with precise positioning of the figure's fingers. The work is so realistic it looks as though Lakshmi will dance at any moment, thanks to casein pigments that capture life-like skin tones and the luminosity of real skin.

At the other end of the spectrum is “;Snow White and the Seven Sins,”; in which a naked Snow White is surrounded by humorous anthropomorphic creatures, composed of female breasts and genitalia, that symbolize each of the seven deadly sins. The fantastic, vibrantly colored “;dwarves”; convey a cartoonish sensibility that contrasts with the understated tone of Fox's human forms.