Painting and the Body will provoke exploration of the human body’s expanding definitions and contexts. You will explore the relationship between painting and contemporary understandings of the body as a subject, an instrument and a theoretical framework. You will investigate processes of performance, gesture and painting informed by ideas including metaphor, portrait, figure, flesh and corporeality. The perception and representation of the body, and how the body is used in art making will be examined and challenged in response to various questions such as, What constitutes the body and its boundaries: within and without, private and public, visible and invisible? What does the contemporary body look like?

The knowledge acquired in this studio course can be applied across a range of related BFA(Hons) and BMA(Hons) courses. This course complements the Year 2 Painting courses SART2400 Painting: Materiality and Construction, SART2401 Painting and Technology and SART2403 Painting: Space, Time and Place and prepares students for more advanced studies in the Year 3 level.