Jenny Saville is a Master of flesh and paint worthy of a place amongst predecessors such as Lucien Freud and Egon Schiele.
A rainbow of fleshy colours adorn each body as Saville picks up on localised variations; shadows, highlights, sun bronzed hands coexisting against pale breasts and pasty legs. Nothing escapes her paint brush as Saville reveals the sitter in all their glorious imperfection. This confident placement of colour is what pulls the viewer in and charms them into falling in love with Saville’s work. The play of an electric blue highlight on deep brown flesh is mirrored inversely by the contrast of a dark crimson nipple crowning the milky beige of a breast.
Yet despite the frantic painterly strokes and the visual feast of flesh, there is a peaceful calm to these works. For all the glorious colours that dance across her subjects, Saville’s canvases remain executed within a restricted colour palette of skin tones and underworked, muted grey backgrounds.
