Jenny Saville at Modern Art Oxford

I was a litle ambivalent about going to see a lot of fat women, painted by a younger female protege of Lucien Freud. But thankfully, there is no comparison. I feel revulsion at Lucien Feud's work, but with Jenny, I was totally captivated, almost spell bound in the presence of these gigantic, literally supersized canvases. It's not that I did not see the fat, but it was the eyes, the colours and textures that engaged me - I was curious about who these women and children were. Then I realised that she had used herself and her own children, amongst others. I loved the way the paint was applied, close up it was totally abstract but at a distance, there was an immense sense of detail.

Downstairs, a lot of her drawings were displayed. Again not average drawings, but amazing technique and skill in proportions. of a mother with multiple squirming toddlers in her arms - ok she had two children but it seemd that she was trying to draw a self portrait while she was holding one or both children who had no sense of time to be still. So it seems that she was one of the Young British Artists found and sponsored by Charles Saatchi - he also supported Damien Hirst at the same time. The feminist critics are making comparisons of Damien's retrospective at the Tate Modern while Jenny is only at Modern Art Oxford. Perhaps the confronting nature of Jenny's art has taken longer for her to be accepted.

But then she has her studio in Oxford and she has two of her drawings displayed in the Renaisence gallery of the Ashmolean Museum, beside the great masters. In this traditional gallery, they are quite confronting in that they lack the complex colour and heavy frames, but the drawing and subject matter are shockingly similar. Jenny notes that despite the gallery being full of female nudes, her work is the first actually produced by a woman. That is impressive for me! So I am very pleasantly surprised - I will look more actively for her work, in the future.