Contemporary Portraiture

Portraiture has long been a central subject in art history, used for documentation, storytelling, or promoting the subject's political or social status. Examples of portraits in this Selection highlight contemporary artists' various approaches to portraiture.

These may entail attempts at verisimilitude, working in a photorealistic style; abstracting the human figure into geometric or fragmented parts; using unlikely colours; or combining elements of multiple mediums such as painting, photography, sculpture, and video.

Contemporary artists have also utilised portraiture as an effective tool of challenging official narratives, portraying historically underrepresented bodies to imagine alternative realities or to discuss lesser-known aspects of history and real-life events.