Muholi is drawn to patterns made by embracing bodies and entwined limbs. Their portrait of queer couple Musa Ngubane and Mabongi Ndlovu shows a hug in which hands and arms seem almost preternaturally connected. The shot of Katlego Mashiloane and Nosipho Lavuta bent over, bathing together, makes the pair’s backs look as though they are merging together into one.

This sense of cohesion makes these images feel so intimate, emotionally raw and powerful. Eye Me can at times be an overwhelming experience for the intensity and quantity of emotions that permeate from virtually every shot in the show.

The largest gallery in Eye Me is reserved for work from Muholi’s magisterial series “Somnyama Ngonyama,” in which they took 365 self-portraits as a vast array of alter egos in locations around the world, from Kyoto to Charlottesville to Nuoro, Italy. Striking in their intricacy (see the dozens of combs carefully arrayed in Muholi’s hair for “Qiniso”) as well as provocative (for “Faniswa,” Muholi painted a uterus on their shoulder), the photographs show the artist often adopting postures of coiled power and great intensity.

For the exhibit, SFMOMA reproduced several of the images from this series to mural size, and the effect is electrifying. In a piece like “Manzi I,” the larger size gives audiences the chance to fully appreciate Muholi’s intricate interplay of textures and masterful arrangement of tones, and their facial expression of wariness, fatigue and resistance hits all the harder.