Chasah (section)

The face that meets you here belongs to "Chasah," a portrait painted by British artist Jenny Saville in 2000. Saville built her reputation on enormous, fleshy paintings of human bodies and faces, usually far bigger than life. From up close, this piece reads almost as a jumble of color, with reds, golds, blues, and purples layered on top of one another. Take a few steps away though and the young face pulls together, the dark eyes settling into a steady, watchful stare.

Rather than polishing away her process, Saville leaves every mark on display. You can trace the drag of her brush and the way the paint got mixed right on the surface, as if her decisions are still sitting there in front of you. She came up in the 1990s alongside the group sometimes called the Young British Artists, and from early on she was fascinated by the physical truth of skin, showing it as textured and shifting rather than smooth and flawless.

The scribbled colors around the cheeks and jaw give the portrait a raw, half-finished quality, and honestly that is part of its appeal. This is a painting that feels both huge and quietly personal at the same time, proof that a picture does not have to be tidy to hold your attention.