Execute Magazine

Artist a Day:   Jenny Saville

Artist a day! JENNY SAVILLE  (b.1970) Jennifer Anne Saville is a contemporary British artist. She is a member of the Young British Artists, and she is known for her large-scale painted portrayals of nude women.

Oil on canvas, 213.4 x 182.9 cm, 1992

Propped

Saville's Works

Her painting process is very traditional; she uses  mark-making as her primary method. You can see mark-making and each color.

Oil on canvas, 250.2 x 350.2 cm, 2018

Vis and Ramin I

Saville's Works

She uses oil paint as her immediate media. She also uses scaffolding to reach higher places of the canvas.

C-print mounted on cardboard  39.4 x 28.4 cm, 2002

Closed Contact

Saville's Works

Jenny Saville's artworks are the most recognizable works of contemporary art. Her work shows depictions of flesh, particularly the female form. In her 1992 painting Branded, she painted a distorted version of her own body.

Oil and mixed media on canvas, 209.5 x 179 cm, 1992

Branded

Saville's Works

She is inspired by  Diego Velázquez's tonal virtuosity paintings, Chaim Soutine, Rembrandt, and Willem de Kooning's.

Print on photo, 61 x 50.8 cm, 2018

Chapter

Saville's Works

"Painting is my natural language. I feel in my own universe when I’m painting."

Famous Quote by  Jenny Saville

Charcoal on paper, 35.6 x 25.4 cm, 1991

Untitled (Portrait of a Woman)

Saville's Works

"I get to a point when I can’t look at any other contemporary art.. Because if I look at anything else, it gives me other options.. I think I can’t have any other options because this is it, this is where I’m at."

Famous Quote by  Jenny Saville

Oil on canvas, 330.2 x 330.2 cm, 1997

Shift

Saville's Works

"I used only to work on one piece at a time, and that’s where the trauma came. Now I move between paintings. When I start getting a bit dogmatic, I switch."

Famous Quote by  Jenny Saville

Oil on canvas, 304.8 x 167.6 cm

Juncture

Saville's Works

Oil on canvas, 269.2 x 219.7 cm, 2013

Shadow Head

Saville's Works

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