Saville is best known for her large-scale paintings of female nudes and sculptural use of paint to depict flesh. She draws upon a wide range of sources in her work, such as medical books, magazines, the internet, films and art.In Aleppo, Saville has used charcoal and pastel, dynamically layering and blending the media to create an image of a stone-like form holding up the cradled bodies, reminiscent of the ‘Pietà’. Despite having created paintings linked to war before, Aleppo is the first work by the artist to refer directly to a contemporary conflict, the Syrian civil war, and the impact of such conflict on civilians.