The portfolio page consists of two sections (the tabs are located in the upper right):

Showcase
Biography & Contact Information

When the portfolio page is loaded, both sections would be loaded at once, so switching between them would not require any additional load time.

About the Showcase tab:
The arrows protruding from the thumbnail strip and information strip could be clicked to HIDE each panel. The image in the center would then automatically resize to fill the space. There is a little slideshow bubble just above the large image that would allow images to auto-transition with fade effects. It could be paused at any time.

If you have writing in your gallery, then the thumbnails would show the title of the work, and the larger image area would reveal the entire piece, with a scrollbar if needed. I designed this mainly with images in mind, however.

About the Biography & Contact Info Section:
You could choose any two images to place on this page.

You could title your portfolio whatever you want. I would have put my entire last name, but I want to stay safe!
You could also choose which tab would appear first.

A big plus for this design:
The contents would be fairly resizable so that the entire portfolio could fit on most screens without the viewer ever having to scroll down in their browser.

About the image:
The image above is slightly smaller than the actual size of the design.

slight-of-eye took the photo I'm using in the Biography tab.

Thank you Sirielle for all your help!