All human bodies are shaped, fashioned and deciphered according to the prevailing cultural, social, and political order which inform the notion of the human form within a particular society.

There is an enduring presence of body images in the history of art often with entrenched visual conventions. Figuration is a powerful conceptual thread linking historical, traditional, modernist, and contemporary art in Africa. Since the early 90s the practice of art and how the body is expressed, viewed, and received entered a new paradigm. Artists broke away from 20th century conventions, challenged boundaries and interrogated what it means to be within social, class, racial, sexual and gender paradigms and explored identity within these cultural contexts.

Re/Presentation of the Figure exemplifies this conceptual thread as modern and contemporary artists express the body though painting, sculpture, photography, ceramics, and woven images.