Jenny Saville is regarded as one of the leading figures in the YBA collective in the 1990s. Primarily a painter producing enormous canvases of bodies in an unflinching manner, the limited edition lithograph ‘Separates’, published by Eyestorm in 2001, was the first print the artist ever created, and is a self-portrait with her sister, their heads so close they appear almost conjoined.
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Based on Saville’s 1999 painting Hyphen, ‘Separates ’ sees Saville discovering a new medium and technique with dynamic brushstrokes, textures and layers. The result is an image that is recognisable as her work, yet distinctly different from the monumental fleshy self-portrait paintings she’s best known for, which explore the human form and the representation of disfiguration or disease of the body as she likens the physicality of paint to the sensation and appearance of skin, constructing often horrifying images of contemporary identity.
Saville has a unique and instantly recognisable style of working which has been compared to that of great painters such as Lucian Freud and Rubens. After graduating from her BA at Glasgow School of Art in 1992, she completed her MA at The Slade School, London, where Charles Saatchi purchased her entire end of year show and commissioned works from her for the next two years, which included a successful solo show at the Saatchi gallery in 1994. She was part of the infamous 1997 ‘Sensation’ show at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, which showcased works from Saatchi’s collection, and since then Saville’s paintings have persistently challenged modern day perceptions of conventional health and beauty. Her work sits in some of the most prestigious public collections in the world including SFMOMA in San Francisco and The National Gallery, London. She currently lives and works in Oxford, England and is represented by Gagosian.
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