Drift (section)

A face tilted sideways fills this canvas, seen so close and at such an odd angle that it takes a second to orient yourself. This is a portion of "Drift," painted by British artist Jenny Saville in 2000. Saville made her name in the 1990s alongside the Young British Artists, a rebellious bunch who jolted the art world with work that was bold and often hard to look away from. Her subject has almost always been the human body, painted big and raw, with none of the smoothing over you find in most portraits.

The real surprise is the color. Get close and the skin dissolves into a jumble of red, pink, green, and blue strokes, hues you would never think belonged on a human face. Back away and your eye stitches them together into flesh that reads as warm and bruised all at once. Saville liked to work on a massive scale, so a head like this could loom over a viewer and demand attention. She has spoken about her interest in bodies that carry weight and lived experience rather than flawless ideals, and that plain honesty comes through in the loose, sure brushwork.