Jenny Saville was born in Cambridge in 1970. She graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1992. Her entire degree show was bought by Charles Saatchi and she later created a new body of work to be displayed in his London gallery. More recently, her exhibiting career has centred on New York. Her early paintings applied modern feminist theory to the traditional genre of the female nude. She has since used her strongly figurative style to address broader issues such as gender and sexual identity.

'What did we look for while doing the judging? Visual dynamics - colour, form, composition and scale.'

Jenny Saville