I know that my week of blogging is coming to a close, but I couldn't resist posting about our reading for next week from Lennard Davis' Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body. As I was doing this reading, I kept thinking about one of my favorite artists, Jenny Saville. She is a part of the "Young British Artists" movement which counts among its stars Damien Hirst and Dinos and Jake Chapman, among others. (Sorry, I am a bit of an art nerd!)

I'm actually writing a paper on Saville's work for my Aesthetics class this semester, and some of what I will be discussing is relevant to this reading. Saville is known for her huge canvases of the female body, with a twist. "Her published sketches and documents include surgical photographs of liposuction, trauma victims, deformity correction, disease states and transgender patients." Her paintings are difficult to look at, but they are truly beautiful, masterful works of art.

This one is my favorite, and the subject of my Aesthetics paper. It is entitled "Hypen," and is supposedly an image of Saville herself with her sister. I think that this plays directly into Davis' Venus and Medusa concept...although I'll leave that discussion up to you!
Here are some more of Saville's works for you to enjoy (or revile):

Saville's works