WOMEN IN ART: JENNY SAVILLE

One artist that many painters seem to find very influential is Jenny Saville. Her work is very grotesque and unique making her opinions heard. For this post I will briefly discuss what I know about her and show you her work. 

Saville became quite famous at a young age while finishing up college. In her 20s she was creating huge pieces of the human figure. "(Flesh) is all things. Ugly, beautiful, repulsive, compelling, anxious, neurotic, dead, alive." which I feel perfectly sums up her work. Her pieces mainly show flesh and she has perfected an active way to paint it. 

Jenny Saville, Red Stare Head IV, 2006-11, oil on canvas, 99"x73"

"Fascinated by the endless aesthetic and formal possibilities that the materiality of the human body offers, Saville remits a highly sensuous and tactile impression of surface and mass in her monumental oil paintings. In the compelling Stare paintings she renders the contours and features of the face and the nuances of skin texture and color in strokes both bold and meticulous. Enlarging the facial features of her human subjects to a vast scale and rendering them in layer upon layer of paint, she imbues in them with a sense of mass and weight that is almost sculptural and at times wholly abstract. Intense pinks, reds, and blues erupt through pale skin tones, disclosing the internal workings of the painting like the flesh and blood of a living organism."

While Red Stare Head IV relates to her older paintings of hanging meat, she always painted figures in hopes to show how foreign and uncomfortable bodies can feel.

Jenny Saville, Propped, 1992, oil on canvas, 213cmx183cm

Her use of text and linework in throughout most of that certain collection in subtlety. But the underlying tones really brings almost a feminist feel to her pieces. There are tons of impressive pieces in this collection I highly suggest looking into because I can't even begin to put them all in here. Because of her interest in bodies and modifying she took some time and just observed plastic surgeons. This helped her to understand the mindset of the person getting something done and also why and how they went about it.

Her newer pieces were all based around Motherhood and she portrayed herself with her child. These newer pieces still have the same fantastic Saville skin tones and brushwork but also included more drawing and line work. The line work really pushes the idea of movement and how children are constantly wiggling and growing.

Jenny Saville, The Mothers, 2011, oil on canvas, 106"x86"

Ever since this collection we haven't seen much work out of Jenny Saville, but hopefully she is continuing working and creating these beautiful contemporary masterpieces.

Citations:
Red Stare Head IV and quotes: © Jenny Saville 2011. Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery http://www.gagosian.com/artists/jenny-saville
Propped: http://www.saatchigallery.com/aipe/jenny_saville.htm

INSPIRATION CAN COME FROM ANYWHERE

I think a lot of artists think that only artistic inspiration is important and that we always must know other artists who are inspiring us. A lot of people think the opposite and that it is important to have other influences like nature. I find that the combination of the two is very important and it shouldn't be a battle of which is more important.

Having a list of artists who influence your work is very crucial to growing and improving. Following big name artists or really any professional artist will allow you to see things within their work that influence your own. For instance, Jenny Saville, an artist who I will talk about later in the month, has a variety of influences one of them being Francis Bacon. So just to see the connection lets compare two of their pieces:

Jenny Saville, Rosetta 2, 2005-6, oil on watercolor paper mounted on board

Francis Bacon, Self Portrait with Injured Eye, 1972

When you first look at the two paintings there are obvious similarities, like portraiture. But going beyond that there are similar ways of how their paint and the colors they use. Both of these artists use colors not necessarily noticed in real skin tones, they're slightly exaggerated. For instance in Saville's Rosetta 2 there are beautiful purples and blues throughout the piece and in Bacon's there are purples, blues, and reds. Another similar characteristic is the brushwork they use. There are parts which are carefully worked but others that are just one generic swoop of the brush like in under the right ear and on the chin of Bacon's and on the left cheek into the neck of Saville's. 

On the other hand it is important to be influenced by what is around you and other things not related to art. Subjects from Geology and Nature to the mechanics of a car can be used for inspiration. This is the basis of what we do and what motivates us. When we find something we find beautiful we want to create art from it and that could be anything. An artist like John F. Simon Jr. who does multimedia pieces is inspired by Geology. You might not be aware of it from first looking at the piece but once you make that connection everything has a different meaning. 

John F. Simon Jr, Endless Bounty, 2005

As artist's we are allowed to be in awe of really strange things. We should take advantage of that and not allow ourselves to get embarrassed for staring at a tree for an abnormally long time in public. Own it and fully let it inspire your work so that you can be the best artist you can.

Photo Cites:
Rosetta 2: http://www.gagosian.com/artists/jenny-saville/selected-works
Self Portrait with Injured Eye: http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Bacon/FBFaces.html
Endless Bounty: http://artdaily.com/news/67295/John-F--Simon-Jr--s-multimedia-works-inspired-by-geology-and-Kandinsky-on-view-at-the-Phillips-Collection