BEXHILL ON SEA.- The Nakeds is a group exhibition that looks at drawings of the body exposed. The practice of drawing a naked body, either from the self, life model, reproduction or imagination, has provided the artist with the freedom to explore the inner self. The drawings in this exhibition are not necessarily physically realistic yet the sense of mental and psychological anguish that they evoke is real enough. Some of the bodily distortions are at odds with the images of perfect bodies that abound in our physical and online environment.

The Nakeds takes as its starting point selected drawings of the single figure by Austrian artist Egon Schiele (1890 – 1918). Working at the same time as Sigmund Freud, in the birthplace of modern psychiatry, the artist was attacked and acclaimed in his short lifetime. Still dividing opinion today, his drawings tested long-held distinctions between the ‘nude’ and the ‘naked’, art and pornography. The exhibition seeks to explore this contested terrain and considers work by artists from the post-war period to the present day including new work made specifically for The Nakeds by Enrico David, Stewart Helm, Chantal Joffe and Nicola Tyson.

This exhibition includes sensitive content.

This is a touring exhibition from Drawing Room, London, curated by Drawing Room in collaboration with artist David Austen and art historian Gemma Blackshaw.

A fully illustrated catalogue designed by Fraser Muggeridge will accompany the exhibition. It will feature a specially commissioned letter to Egon Schiele by Nicola Tyson and new essays by Gemma Blackshaw and David Austen.

Artists: David Austen, Fiona Banner, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, George Condo, Enrico David, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, Stewart Helm, Chantal Joffe, Maria Lassnig, Paul McCarthy, Chris Ofili, Carol Rama, Egon Schiele, Georgina Starr, Alina Szapocznikow, Rosemarie Trockel, Nicola Tyson