Exploring Figuration

Artists have continually reimaged the human figure. While some have followed tradition and others have rebelled against it, all share the same desire to grapple with questions surrounding the universality of the human experience. Spanning modernist to contemporary works, this exhibition charts a history of artistic engagement with figuration. 

The end of the 19th century beckoned in the Modern age with artists seeking new perspectives on the figure. With the rise of abstraction in the 1900s, interest in the figure was rejuvenated as an act of revolt. Rejecting the idea that referencing the physical world was unnecessary, artists took the body as a starting point for their interpretations. Recently, a new focus on figuration has emerged, anchored on new conceptual shifts. Perpetually reimagined, politicised, contorted, and scrutinised, the human figure is the most fascinating and enduring of subjects.