It has been proclaimed that figurative artwork has found its way from the periphery back to the center of the art world. Hilliard Gallery disagrees that figurative artwork ever went to the periphery in the first place. For over twenty-five years Hilliard has been a leading voice in advocating for figurative work and over the last 15 years has hosted their annual show, The Figure in Contemporary Art.
The figurative form can be used as the ideal medium to convey a spectrum of ideas with which the viewer can resonate. The human figure has always been a common subject of visual art, “it forces the viewer to engage the artwork and enables the artist to express an entire range of ideas from the subtle to the intense. In the history of art the human figure bears, in different ways and through different periods in time, a huge significance, being the most direct means by which art can address the human condition”, Bob Hilliard.
