Monoprints
Emin's monoprints are a well documented part of her creative output. These unique drawings represent a diaristic aspect and frequently depict events from the past for example,
Poor Love (1999),
From The Week Of Hell '94 (1995) and
Ripped Up (1995), which relate to a traumatic experience after an abortion or other personal events as seen in
Fuck You Eddy (1995) and
Sad Shower in New York (1995) which are both part of the Tate's collection of Emin's art. Tate Collection | Tracey Emin
Often they incorporate text as well as image, although some bear only text and others only image. The text appears as the artist's stream of consciousness voice. Some critics have compared Emin's text-only monoprints to ransom notes. The rapid, one-off technique involved in making monoprints is perfectly suited to (apparently) immediate expression, as is Emin's scratchy and informal drawing style. Emin frequently misspells words, deliberately or due to the speed at which she did each drawing. In a 2002 interview with Lynn Barber, Emin said,
Emin created a key series of monoprints in 1997 with the text
Something's Wrong or
There Must Be Something Terebley Wrong With Me [
sic] written with spelling mistakes intact in large capital letters alongside "forlorn figures surrounded by space, their outlines fragile on the page. Some are complete bodies, others only female torsos, legs splayed and with odd, spidery flows gushing from their vaginas. They are all accompanied by the legend
There's Something Wrong."
Other key monoprints include a series from 1994 and 1995 known as the
Illustrations from Memory series which document Tracey's childhood memories of sexual awakening and other experiences growing up in Margate such as
Fucking Down An Ally 16/5/95 (1995) and
Illustrations from Memory, the year 1974. In The Livingroom (1994). Emin further produced a set of monoprints detailing her memories of Margate's iconic buildings such as
Margate Harbour 16/5/95 (1995),
The Lido 16/5/95 (1995) and
Light House 15/5/95 (1995). Other drawings from 1994 include the
Family Suite series, part of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art collection, consisting of 20 monoprints with "archetypal themes in Emin's art: sex, her family, her abortions, and Margate". The Art Fund - Family Suite This series of monoprints will be displayed for the first time from August 2008 at the Edinburgh based gallery as part of her first major retrospective, which has been called the
Summer Blockbuster exhibition. National Galleries of Scotland - Supportus A further
Family Suite II set was exhibited in Los Angeles in November 2007 as part of Emin's solo show at Gagosian gallery. Gagosian Gallery - Exhibition - Tracey Emin
Emin's monoprints are rarely displayed alone in exhibitions, they're particularly effective as collective fragments of intense emotional confrontation. Emin has made several works documenting painful moments of sadness and loneliness experienced when travelling to foreign cities for various exhibitions such as
Thinking Of You (2005) and
Bath White IV (2005) which were from a series of monoprints drawn directly onto the USA
Mondrian hotel stationary. White Cube ... Tracey Emin Emin herself has said,
In summer 2009, Emin along with book publisher Rizzoli will release a book titled
One Thousand Drawings. As the title suggests, the book will contain 1000 drawings of Emin's career since 1988. The book will be released to coincide with Emin's show
Those who suffer love at White Cube which is mainly a drawings show. Emin said in a recent interview that "We actually looked at about 2000 drawings and then chose 1000 drawings [for the book]... I'd probably done, over that period of time about 4000 drawings".
Painting
Emin displayed six small watercolours in her Turner Prize exhibition in 1999, and also in her New York show
Every Part Of Me's Bleeding held that same year, known as the
Berlin Watercolour series (1998). These delicate, washed out but colourful watercolours include four portraits of Emin's face and were all painted by Emin in Berlin during 1998, adapted from Polaroids of the artist taking a bath. Each unique painting from this series share the same title,
Berlin The Last Week In April 1998. Simon Wilson, spokesperson for the Tate, commented that Emin included the set of tiny Berlin watercolours "as a riposte to the accusation that there are no paintings" in the Turner Prize exhibitions. The bath theme seen in these watercolours was later revisited by Emin in her photographic work
Sometimes I Feel Beautiful (2000) and in monoprints such as the
Bath White (2005) series. With all these works, Emin explores a Mary Cassatt quality of the "woman in a private moment".
Emin's focus on painting has developed over the past few years, starting with the
Purple Virgin (2004) acrylic watercolour series of purple brush strokes depicting her naked open legs, and leading to paintings such as
Asleep Alone With Legs Open (2005), the
Reincarnation (2005) series and
Masturbating (2006) amongst others.
In May 2005, London's
Evening Standard newspaper highlighted Emin's return to painting in their preview of her
When I Think About Sex exhibition at White Cube. Other works were nude self-portrait drawings. Emin was quoted: "For this show I wanted to show that I can really draw, and I think they are really sexy drawings." The bare truth about Tracey| Showbiz | This is London
Work for her 2007 show at the Venice Biennale (see below) included large-scale canvases of her legs and vagina. A watercolour series called
The Purple Virgins were displayed. There are ten
Purple Virgin works in total, six of which were shown at the Biennale. These were accompanied by two canvases of a similar style called
How I Think I Feel 1 and 2.
The Venice Biennale was also the first time Emin's
Abortion Watercolour series, painted in 1990, had ever been shown in public.
Jay Jopling uncovered a brand new Emin painting,
Rose Virgin (2007), as part of White Cube's stand at the Frieze Art Fair in London's Regent's Park on 10 October 2007. More new paintings are expected to be shown in Emin's
You Left Me Breathing exhibition in Los Angeles' Gagosian gallery from 2 November 2007, described in a recent interview as an 'exhibition of sculpture and painting'. A number of new paintings were on display including
Get Ready For The Fuck Of Your Life (2007).
Photography
Emin has produced many photographic works throughout her career, including
Monument Valley (Grand Scale) (1995—97) Tate Collection | Monument Valley (Grand Scale) by Tracey Emin and
Outside Myself (Monument Valley, reading ‘Exploration of the Soul’) (1995) which resulted "from a trip Emin made to the United States in 1994. She and her then boyfriend, the writer, curator and gallerist Carl Freedman, drove from San Francisco to New York stopping off along the way to give readings from her book, Exploration of the Soul 1994. The photograph shows the artist sitting in an upholstered chair in Monument Valley, a spectacular location on the southern border of Utah with northern Arizona, holding her book. Although it is open, it is not clear whether she is looking at the viewer or at the text in front of her. Emin gave her readings sitting in the chair, which she had inherited from her grandmother, which also became part of Emin's art,
There's A Lot Of Money In Chairs (1994).
Other photographic works include a series of nine images comprising the work
Naked Photos — Life Model Goes Mad (1996) documenting a painting performance Emin made in a room specially built in Galleri Andreas Brändström, Stockholm. Another photographic series,
Trying On Clothes From My Friends (She Took The Shirt Off His Back) (1997), shows the artist trying on her friends’ clothes offering up questions of identity.
Other works such as
I've Got It All (2000) show Emin with her "legs splayed on a red floor, clutching banknotes and coins to her crotch. Made at a time of public and financial success, the image connects the artist’s desire for money and success and her sexual desire (her role as consumer) with her use of her body and her emotional life to produce her art (the object of consumption)". Whilst
Sometimes I Feel Beautiful (2000) pictures Emin lying alone in a bath. Both these works are examples of Emin using "large-scale photographs of herself to record and express moments of emotional significance in her life, frequently making reference to her career as an artist. The photographs have a staged quality, as though the artist is enacting a private ritual."
Emin's most iconic are the two self portraits taken inside her famous beach hut,
The Last Thing I Said To You Is Don't Leave Me Here I (2000) and
The Last Thing I Said To You Is Don't Leave Me Here II (2000). The latter two photographs are a diptych although they are often exhibited and sold separately. They depict a naked Emin on her knees inside her beach hut which she and friend Sarah Lucas had bought in Whitstable, Kent in 1992. The hut itself later became the sculpture
The Last Thing I Said To You Is Don't Leave Me Here (The Hut) (1999). They are part of museum collections including Tate Modern, the Saatchi Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and have been mass produced as postcards sold in museum shops around the world.
Neon
Emin has also worked with neon lights. One such piece is
You Forgot To Kiss My Soul (2001) which consists of those words in blue neon inside a neon heart-shape. Another neon piece is made from the words
Is Anal Sex Legal (1998). to complement another
Is Legal Sex Anal (1998) For the Venice Biennale, Emin produced a series of new purple neon works, for example,
Legs I (2007). British Council - Tracey Emin, Venice 2007 This 2007 series of
Legs neon works were directly inspired by the
Purple Virgin (2004) watercolour series. For example,
Legs IV (2007) Tracey Emin - Legs IV directly follows the watercolour lines of the
Purple Virgin 9 (2004). For a joint 2010 exhibition with Paula Rego and Mat Collishaw she decorated the front of the Foundling Museum with the neon words "Foundlings and fledglings are angels of this earth".
Emin has donated neon work to auction for charity and in 2007, her neon
Keep Me Safe reached the highest price ever made for one of her neon works of over £60,000. Art Market Watch - artnet Magazine A brand new neon piece called
With You I Want To Live will be shown as part of Emin's
You Left Me Breathing exhibition in November/December 2007 at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles.
Fabric
Emin frequently works with fabric in the form of appliqués — material (often cut out into lettering) sewn onto other material. She collects fabric from curtains, bed sheets and linen and has done so for most of her life. She keeps such material that holds emotional significance for later use in her work. Many of her large scale appliqués are made on hotel linens, for example,
It Always Hurts (2005),
Sometimes I Feel So Fucking Lost (2005),
Volcano Closed (2001) and
Helter Fucking Skelter (2001).
Hate And Power Can Be A Terrible Thing (2004), part of the Tate's collection of Emin's work, is a large scale blanket inspired in part by Margaret Thatcher due to her involvement in "an attack on 800 boys and men in the Argentinian navy" and other women for example women who steals their friends' boyfriends, Emin says of this work "about the kind of women I hate, the kind of women I have no respect for, women who betray and destroy the hearts of other women". BT Series - Tracey Emin
Emin's use of fabric is diverse, one of her most famous works came from sewing letters onto her grandmother's armchair in
There's A Lot Of Money In Chairs (1994). The chair was very detailed, "including her and her twin brother’s names, the year of her grandmother’s birth (1901) and the year of her birth (1963) on either side of the words ‘
another world’, referring to the passing of time. An exchange between the artist and her grandmother using the nicknames they had for each other: ‘
Ok Puddin, Thanks Plum’, covers the bottom front of the chair and a saying of Emin’s grandmother’s, ‘
There’s a lot of money in chairs’, is appliquéd in pink along the top and front of its back. Behind the chair back, the first page of Exploration of the Soul, handwritten onto fabric, is appliquéd together with other dictums such as, ‘
It’s not what you inherit. It’s what you do with your inheritance’". Emin used the chair on a trip Emin made to the United States in 1994. Driving from San Francisco to New York stopping off along the way to give readings from her book,
Exploration of the Soul (1994). Emin gave her readings sitting in the upholstered chair and "as she crossed the United States, the artist sewed the names of the places she visited — San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Monument Valley, Detroit, Pittsburgh, New York - onto the front of the chair". Emin also posed in the chair for two of her photographic works (see Photography) whilst in Monument Valley, in the Arizona Desert. It is currently on public display at Pallant House Gallery until 6 March 2011 as part of the exhibition, 'Contemporary Eye: Crossovers.'
Emin has made a large number of smaller scale works, often including hand sewn words and images, such as
Falling Stars (2001),
It Could Have Been Something (2001),
Always Sorry (2005) and
As Always (2005).
On 13 April 2007, Emin launched a specially designed flag made out of fabric with the message
One Secret Is To Save Everything written in orange-red letters across the banner made up of hand-sewn swimming sperm. Tracey Emin's flag, at 21 feet by 14 feet, will fly above the Jubilee Gardens in the British capital until 31 July 2007, with the parliament building and the London Eye as backdrops. Emin called the artwork "a flag made from wishful thinking". The flag was commissioned by the South Bank Centre in London's Waterloo.
In June 2007, on returning from the Venice Biennale, Emin donated a piece of artwork, a handsewn blanket called
Star Trek Voyager to be auctioned at Elton John's annual glamorous White Tie & Tiara Ball to raise money for The Elton John AIDS Foundation. The piece of artwork sold for £800,000.
Emin's works on fabric has been related to other artists such as Louise Bourgeois, who Emin actually mentions in a sewn work called
The Older Woman (2005) with the phrase (monoprint on fabric), "I think my Dad should have gone out with someone older like Louise, Louise Bourgeois". Tracey Emin Emin was interviewed by Alan Yentob during the BBC's
Imagine documentary
Spiderwoman about Louise Bourgeois, aired in the UK on 13 November 2007.
Found objects
Emin has often made use of found objects in her work from the early use of a cigarette box found in a car crash in which her uncle died. The most well known example is
My Bed, where she displayed her bed. Another instance is the removal of her beach hut from Whitstable to be displayed in a gallery. This work was titled
The Last Thing I Said To You Is Don't Leave Me Here (The Hut) (1999).
She revisited the theme of the bed in 2002, with the mixed media installation,
To Meet My Past (2002), Tracey Emin - To Meet My Past - Contemporary Art another installation with a four poster bed with embroidered text such as
Weird Sex and
To Meet My Past hanging down alongside the mattress.
Emin also incorporated stones and rocks which had been thrown through her window in a mixed media piece in her 2005 show. The work consists of a monoprint of herself sitting on a chair with the stones lined up below the drawing in a vitrine.
The Leg (2004) included a plaster cast inside a vitrine, kept by the artist after she broke her leg, exhibited alongside a C-print photograph of the artist wearing the cast. White Cube ... When I Think about Sex
Installations
Emin has created a number of installation art pieces including
Poor Thing (Sarah and Tracey) (2001) which was made up of two hanging frames, hospital gowns, a water bottle and wire. A similar installation called
Feeling Pregnant III (2005) made up of fabric hung off wooden and metal coat hangers and stands was a later creation for Emin. Both these installations touch further on Emin's relationship with pregnancy and abortion and can be related to Louise Bourgeois' sculptures such as
Untitled (1996), a mobile of hanging clothes, and
Untitled (2007), a series of standing bronze sculptures.
The Perfect Place to Grow (2001) was a video installation with a set consisting of a wooden birdhouse, a DVD (shot on Super 8), monitor, trestle, plants, wooden ladder. This installation has been exhibited at the Tate Britain in 2004 in their room dedicated to Emin's work and also White Cube in 2001. It was dedicated to her father, creating the bird house as
a tiny home for my dad and Emin thought of the works' title from the idea of
nature and nurture. BT Series - Tracey Emin
Knowing My Enemy (2002) was a large scale installation created by Emin for her Modern Art Oxford solo show of that year. Consisting of reclaimed wood and steel, Emin created a wooden 'look-out' house upon a long, broken, wooden pier.
It's Not the Way I Want to Die (2005) was another large scale installation, part of Emin's 2005 solo show at White Cube. Emin created a large rollercoaster track with reclaimed timber and metal. Displayed in the same show was a smaller installation work called
Self Portrait (2005) which consisted of a tin bath, bamboo, wire and neon light. White Cube ... When I Think about Sex Another related installation
Sleeping With You (2005) consisted of painted reclaimed timber and a thin neon light across a dark wall.
Films
Emin featured with her then boyfriend, Billy Childish, in
Quiet Lives (1982) (11 mins, 16 mm, written and directed by Eugene Doyen), once available with
Cheated and
Room for Rent in
A Hangman Triple Bill, also known as
The Hangman Trilogy, Hangman Films.
Quiet Lives is discussed in an article on Childish's films in No Focus: punk on film (Headpress, 2006).
An autobiographical work is the film,
CV Cunt Vernacular (1997), in which Emin narrates her story from childhood in Margate, through her student years, abortions and destruction of her early work.
Top Spot (2004) is a feature-length non-fiction production, mixing DV footage and Super 8 film into lyrical montage. The title refers to a youth centre/disco in Margate (but also a sexual reference),
Top Spot. The film draws heavily on Emin's teenage experiences of growing up in Margate, and features six teenage girls who share their stories. The natural beauty of the sea and the sunsets is linked with Margate’s more manmade pleasures, underscored with a selection of 1970s songs that formed the soundtrack to the artist’s own adolescence. It was shot during the summertime in Margate, London, and Egypt. Emin withdrew the film from general distribution. The film has been broadcast on free-to-air television in the UK. A DVD of the film was released in 2004.
Books
- Details of Depression (2003) Written by Emin using her full name, Tracey Karima Emin: Cyprus/London. Another limited edition, stamped on the back cover, which brings together an ancient Arabic poem and a series of photographs taken around Northern Cyprus. Published by Counter Editions at the same time as the re-issued version of Exploration Of The Soul.
- Strangeland (2005) was Emin's long-awaited memoir. It is divided into three sections, "Motherland", "Fatherland" and "Traceyland". It is written in the first person and conveys an unvarnished look at her life from childhood. Jeanette Winterson wrote, "Her latest writings are painfully honest, and certainly some of it should have been edited out by someone who loves her." Emin's editor for Strangeland was the British novelist Nicholas Blincoe. This book also attracted considerable media coverage and Billy Childish publicly questioned some accounts in newspaper articles.
- Those Who Suffer Love (2009) A new compiled selection of Tracey Emin’s GQ poems complete with accompanying drawings.
Sculpture
In February 2005, Emin's first public artwork, a bronze sculpture, went on display outside the Oratory, adjacent to Liverpool Cathedral. It consists of a small bird perched on a tall bronze pole, and is designed so that the bird seems to disappear when viewed from the front. It was commissioned by the BBC. "Emin's work stands outside The Oratory, in Upper Duke Street just outside the Cathedral. The Roman Standard - which features a small bird on top of a four-metre high bronze pole - is a tribute to the city's famous symbol the Liver Bird. The sculpture was commissioned by the BBC as part of their contribution to the art05 festival and Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture in 2008. Emin says the sculpture represents strength and femininity." Installation by Tracey Emin (1 month) - Liverpool Cathedral In September 2008, Emin will unveil a brand new neon work that will "be installed in the well of the cathedral" Sir Paul McCartney and Tracey Emin are Culture stars - Liverpool Echo.co.uk Emin herself says of her continuing relationship of making public sculptures in the town, "When Liverpool is Capital of Culture in 2008, I'll be making a large work for the Anglican Cathedral, which I'm really looking forward to."
Other sculptures have included
Death Mask (2002) which is a bronze cast of her own head. Emin loaned this work to the National Portrait Gallery in 2005,
At Emin's 2007
Venice Biennale exhibition, as well as the central exhibition's
Tower sculptures, tall wooden towers consisting of small pieces of timber piled together, a new small bronze-cast sculpture work of a child's pink sock was revealed
Sock (2007) on display on the steps of the British Pavilion. Her exhibition again attracted widespread UK media coverage, both positive and nagative.
In September 2007, Emin announced she'll be exhibiting new sculpture work in the inaugural Folkestone Triennial which will take place in the Kent town from June until September 2008. In June 2008, Emin discussed the Folkestone sculptures, stating the "high percentage" of teenage pregnancies in the Kent town had inspired this latest work. Emin said her contribution would be different pieces placed around the town,
Emin's 2007 solo show at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles' Beverly Hills included brand new sculpture works described by Emin as, "some very strange little sculptures. They are nearly all of animals, apart from one, which is a pineapple. They rest on mini-plinths made in a really brilliant LA, beach, California, Fifties surfer kind of style. Different woods put together in cute pattern formations. In some places the wood is 18th-century floorboards, some bits of cabin from tall ships or things which could have been found on the seashore — driftwood." The New York Times included Emin in a piece about artists who are
Originals with a new photograph with two sculptures, one of a small bird on a thin stand and a large seagull, both sculptures placed upon wooden plinths. Gagosian further described the many different sculptures from the show as, "a group of delicate wood and jesmonite sculptures, which expand on the spirals, rollercoasters, and bridges of recent years. Others incorporate cast bronze figures — seagulls, songbirds, and frogs ... or objects combining cement and glass, which are placed on tables or bundled bases made from found timbers."
In late November 2007, it was announced that Emin was one of six artists to have been shortlisted to propose a sculpture for the fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. Antony Gormley, the artist behind the Angel of the North, and Turner Prize-nominated Yinka Shonibare are also in the running. The contenders have been commissioned to produce a scale model of their idea. On 6 January 2008, it was revealed Emin's proposal was a lifesize model of a group of four meerkats, the desert mammal. Entitled
Something for the Future it consists of a sculpture of four meerkats "as a symbol of unity and safety." as "whenever Britain is in crisis or, as a nation, is experiencing sadness and loss (for example, after Princess Diana's funeral), the next programme on television is 'Meerkats United.'" The Fourth Plinth - Tracey Emin The successful proposal will be announced in 2008 and the new winning work unveiled in 2009. The other shortlisted artists are Turner Prize-winner Jeremy Deller, Anish Kapoor, and Bob and Roberta Smith - the professional name of Patrick Brill.
