Comedian Hannah Gadsby is reprising her popular tours of the NGV, Nakedy Nudes, as part of the Comedy Festival.

Fleshed out: Hannah Gadsby pulls together her backgrounds in art and comedy during her Nakedy Nudes show. Photo: Simon Schluter

Hannah Gadsby wants to make one thing clear about her latest comedy festival art tour, Nakedy Nudes - she will be wearing clothes.

''I know people are living in hope,'' she says, ''but no, I'm not in the nude.''

It's the fifth year the Tasmanian-born comedian has run her NGV ''comedy art tours'', and this time, having previously explored Dadaism, Modernism, Impressionism and paintings of the Holy Virgin, she's tackling nudes.

''The nude is the most painted thing in history, so I'm giving a general overview of why we're so obsessed with the nude,'' she says. ''Is it basically porn for connoisseurs? A lot of Western art is about men painting and looking at the female nude. I'll be looking at the reclining nude, a favourite.

''Pretty much if you see a reclining nude, just chilling out, you think, 'That's art'.''

She'll also lead her tour groups through classic masculine depictions of nudity and another category - gratuitous nudity.

''Nudes with no real reason to be nude,'' she explains. ''Michelangelo was good for that - he'd paint a picture of the Holy Family but then there'd be a whole bunch of nudes in the background. They don't need to be there!

''I'll also be looking at what's happened since feminism - there's been a lot more women taking on the female nudes, mostly since the '60s and '70s - and their versions of nudes are a little less idealised, a bit more confronting and powerful. There's all sorts of thing in there. But basically it's just things that used to be rude.''

Gadsby is best known for her stand-up, but she also has a degree in art history and curatorship, and she's created something of a sideline career in the art world.

As well as the annual comedy tours, she's increasingly opening exhibitions; she gives a talk on artist Fiona Hall at Heide Museum of Modern Art in May; she's working with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney; and she's opening an exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia. She's also just filmed a documentary on Australian art for the ABC, which screens later in the year.

''I'm lightening things up a little,'' she says. ''Although the ABC doco wasn't lighthearted in the end. Australian art history very closely parallels Australian history, which is not an easy history. I tap to a few contemporary indigenous artists who are working against colonial art and re-interpreting it … I've had to walk a delicate line there.

''I do want to make it funny - in that it's accessible, but not using humour to undermine any points I make.''

Gadsby is happy with her art sidelines - which attract a different crowd from her stand-up fans.

''There's a whole bunch of people [on the tours] who wouldn't even go and see comedy, which is fun. They're really unsure about it but they come along and laugh.

''But there's a bit of crossover in the audiences,'' she says. ''I have to do it so why shouldn't they?''

Hannah Gadsby's Nakedy Nudes, March 30, April 6, 13 and 20, Clemenger BBDO Auditorium, NGV.