Bodies of Art

The human figure is one of the most enduring subjects of art. Throughout time gods, spirits and deities have been rendered in human form, with figures used for sacred, spiritual and religious worship and ceremonies. Representations of the body have changed as social conditions and artistic expressions evolve. Spanning art making across hundreds of years this display invites viewers to consider what it means to be human.

Artists use mythology and allegory to address ideals of beauty, or to explore notions of the inner workings of the body. Nineteenth-century sculptors such as Paul Montford and Bertram MacKennal capture the female form in bronze. Artists like Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud challenge ideal representations by abstracting and distorting elements of the body to explore psychological expression.

More recently, video and film have allowed artists to bring immediacy to our experience of the body in art. For Julie Rrap, Bill Viola and Shaun Gladwell, the body is more than simply a subject that can be abstracted or that alludes to something else. In their work, viewers are enclosed within the experience of the body, as it moves through space and time.