Boo Saville has – since 2014 – been producing large-scale abstracts, made up of flawlessly gradating shades. Saville, whose work investigates mortality and the nature of perception, applies up to forty layers of paint to achieve this extraordinary effect, erasing any suggestion of her own mark-making in spite of the emotional tenor of the works. The colour fields are inextricably linked to her black and white canvases, the subjects of the latter – sparingly painted so as to retain the appearance of the canvas weave – resulting from internet searches that occur to her whilst working on the abstracts. She notes: “The black and white paintings are purely about the surface of momentary thought and the colour fields are about the depth and vault of emotion and memory layered on top of each other. Her focus is also the texture and surface of drawing, harnessed through her intuitive use of simple biros and pens: fine details of flowers or bones and hair are coupled with layer upon layer of shaded lines to produce tones and depths that resonate these resounding details, and disorientating linear constructions, culminating in a true mastery of penmanship. Boo Saville was born in Norwich in 1980. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, in 2004. Saville was a nominee for the Sovereign Painting Prize in both 2007 and 2011, and in 2008 she worked on a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. Saville’s solo exhibitions include ‘Laid Bare’, Martin Summers Fine Art, London (2008), ‘Idolum’, Studio Giangaleazzo Visconti, Milan (2010) and ‘Chimera’, Davidson Contemporary, New York (2017). She has received four separate solo shows at TJ Boulting, London, including ‘Polycephaly’ (2014), and was included in the group exhibition ‘Simulation/Skin’ and 'True Colours' at Newport Street Gallery in London. Saville’s work has been acquired by collections including the Museum of New and Old Art, Tazmania, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Murderme, Soho House and Maramotti collection. She featured in Francesca Gavin’s books ‘Hell Bound: New Gothic Art’ (2008) and ‘100 New Artists’ (2011), and published an edition of etchings, ‘Ghost’, with Other Criteria in 2009. Her most recent edition of prints 'Contact, Merge,Void' were made in collaboration with Manifold Editions in London and are available here. She lives and works in Margate.