Why has figurative painting become fashionable again?

The figure is back. Faces stare, bodies sprawl, fingers swipe, mums clutch, hands loll. The Venice Biennale was full of it. After decades of being pushed to the margins, figurative painting is once again dominating the art world. Peter Doig, Alex Katz, Chris Ofili and Jenny Saville head the sales at auction houses, but there is a whole market of up-and-comers snapping at the heels of these established names.

How has this happened? Until quite recently, the figure, like melody in music, was associated with the most reactionary elements within art. The body emerged out of the second world war a wreck, blinking amid the glare and slash of abstract expressionism, pop art and conceptualism. Its earnest presence went against everything that was fundamental and fashionable in post-Duchampian art with its commitment to the sly and chin-strokey.

What changed was the demand to affirm and bear witness to your identity and ‘lived experience’.