Jenny Saville | Life Through a Microscope

Jenny Saville is a hugely successful international artist best known for her monumental depictions of the naked female form. Saville draws upon a wide range of sources in her work, including medical and forensic textbooks, children’s drawings, graffiti and online images, as well as celebrated paintings and drawings of the past. In more recent years, Saville has created works in which she layers images, often drawing on several different sources. Working between the figurative and abstract, she has chosen to use charcoal and pastel in many of these works, attracted by the transparency they offer. These materials allow Saville to work organically, layering and erasing her media to blend and merge bodily forms and abstract gestures. Among Saville’s inspiration include key figures from 20th-century art history such as Williem De Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Cy Twombly, as well as old masters such as Titian, Tintoretto, and Velazquez. In this video, Saville discusses her proces