In The Flesh at the National Portrait Gallery

By Benjamen Judd

Visit Website

This month, the National Portrait Gallery launches one of their most fascinating exhibitions. Running until March 2015, In The Flesh is a brilliant look at the human body in art.

Described as “an enthralling and immersive experience of contemporary figurative art” the exhibition plays with the concept of what is humanness, particularly in the field of representation. The exhibition invites you to contemplate the nature of consciousness, self-awareness and emotional states through the works of ten Australian artists.

Capitalising on the confronting nature that our own bodies can have for us, the exhibition explores themes of interaction such as intimacy and empathy, alienation and ultimately mortality. A truly eye-opening look at the interface of the mind and body, the exhibition perfectly captures the ways they interact not within themselves but with other such embodied beings.

Bringing together work in diverse media with a fresh psychological edge from public and private collections, the exhibition features Jan Nelson, Natasha Bieniek, Patricia Piccinini, Juan Ford, Petrina Hicks, Ron Mueck, Yanni Floros, Sam Jinks, Michael Peck and Robin Eley.

In The Flesh is now showing at the National Portrait Gallery until March 2015.