Jenny Saville
2002/2003
Oil on Canvas
213.4 cm x 243.8 cm
(Gagosian, 2003)

I viewed the painting ‘Reverse’ in 2018 at Tate Britain, the exhibition ‘All Too Human’ (which) celebrates the painters in Britain who strive to represent human figures, their relationships and surroundings in the most intimate of ways. (Tate, 2020) ‘Reverse’ is a large scale unframed canvas situated alone in an open area of the gallery space. The image is that of a female head lying on its side staring outwards at the viewer blankly dominating the canvas painted almost to the very edges of the support. The head is rested on a reflective surface mirroring the image in the lower fifth of the composition. There is a notable looseness in the brushstrokes which reveal the liquidity of the medium. The colour pallet focuses on the use of tone, rarely straying from the tones of reds and browns but optimising the use of every flesh-like tone between the two.

The immediate response to the painting is that of scale and that which is represented combined, the familiar human features become strangely less recognisable at such an increased scale. There is a feeling of intensity and perhaps sensuous intimacy in the outward gaze of the open mouthed subject which somehow retains eye contact level with the viewer as if lying beside them. The surface of the skin is rendered using rich reds and brown pigments which in places suggest that the skin is open and bloodied; this is highlighted by brushstrokes which break the surface of the paint in a way which could describe broken skin although this remains ambiguous. There seems to be delicacy and fragility suggested through the surface of the skin and yet the painting appears to have been created with a sense of urgency and strength. Strong brushstrokes evocative of the possible narrative suggested as to why the subject lies looking outwardly in such a raw and emotionless way. The surface of the paint appears wet and evokes realism yet there is still the sense of awe in its painterly presence.

‘Reverse’ is a self portrait, a fact I later learned which seems less relevant as painting feels as if it is communicating something relatable to all. In the same way that one would view Caravaggio’s ‘Supper at Emmaus’ looking into the image immersive rather than it being a narrative personal to Caravaggio himself. Saville’s practice in general focuses on nude predominantly female flesh, she describes this: “It’s all things. Ugly, beautiful, repulsive, compelling, anxious, neurotic, dead, alive.” (Mackenzie, 2005)

Saville’s process is relatively measured in practical terms, often working from photographs and rarely from life planning being essential to outcome. Her impulses and inspiration derives from her thinking practice. She talks about the visual references which feed her practice which often come from personal experience. For example; Saville describes a childhood memory as a “fascination with fat” (sitting on the floor watching her piano teacher) “From below she had these big, thick thighs, a thick tweed skirt and tights, and I’d spend the whole time looking at the way her thighs never parted and how the flesh would rub against the tights.” This instinctive response and her fascination with life and human flesh has influenced her work which references ideas associated with, body image, disgust, deformity, gender and feminism.

Saville understands and manipulates paint in a way which describes flesh in a visceral and tangible way yet managing to retaining the materiality of the medium. However she remains focussed on the intention to represent driven by her internal reference to subject matter through paint. Jenny Saville: “I have to really work at the tension between getting the paint to have the sensory quality that I want and be constructive in terms of building the form of a stomach, for example, or creating the inner crevice of a thigh. The more I do it, the more the space between abstraction and figuration becomes interesting. I want a painting realism. (Schama, n.d.)

Possible links for essay?

As opposed to the evolving image which an intuitive painter may develop erasing and sacrificing throughout responding to the materiality of the medium.

She describes her personal neurosis as an asset to her practice ‘like a living sketchbook’ (Mackenzie, 2005)

References
Image:Gagosian, 2003. Jenny Saville – Reverse. [image] Available at: <https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2003/jenny-saville-migrants/> [Accessed 18 May 2020].

Tate. 2020. All Too Human: Bacon, Freud And A Century Of Painting Life – Exhibition At Tate Britain | Tate. [online] Available at: <https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/all-too-human> [Accessed 18 May 2020].

Mackenzie, S., 2005. Under the skin. The Guardian, [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/oct/22/art.friezeartfair2005> [Accessed 18 May 2020].

Schama, S., n.d. Jenny Saville – Passage – Contemporary Art. [online] Saatchigallery.com. Available at: <https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/jenny_saville_passage.htm> [Accessed 18 May 2020].