«Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and suppressing haste». R.W. Emerson

MEAM is proud to present this collection, a showcase of the good health of international figurative art that brings together a wide range of artistic sensibilities. Realism is an excellent tool for dealing with the world without running away from it. We renew our gaze through drawings, paintings, and sculptures that are testimonies frozen in time about our present.  

Two central themes run through the exhibition. On the one hand, the human body, that great unknown that we all inhabit. The human figure has accompanied realism since its inception. Understanding our bodies is understanding an essential part of who we are. Each individual body tells a unique story. The works bring us closer to those bodies. They reach where words cannot. 
   On the other hand, the collection deals with time. A work of art takes things out of the continuous flow of passing days and turns them into a perpetual present, an instant captured for eternity. All the artists in this collection are clear that art requires effort. In this age of immediacy, in this age of performative sensibility, realist artists continue to hone their craft, seeking a time of genuine understanding of their surroundings and themselves. The works presented here are containers of human hours, latent testimonies of our value as sentient beings, translations of our natural rhythms.

Figurative art is an art form that shares rather than alienates, always offering paths of access to the viewer. It is an art form for everyone. An art form for observing and appreciating anew that which already belongs to us: our bodies and our time.