Tracey Emin Prints
Emin's searingly honest and confessional practice across a variety of media burns brightly in the contemporary art world and has elevated her to the status of a legend within her lifetime. Bursting onto the scene in the 90s as one of the Young British Artists, the raw intimacy of her vision connects with audiences across the globe. Her work as a painter, printmaker, draughtswoman, sculptor and filmmaker is amongst the fiercely original art produced in Britain during the 21st century.
Emin's earliest works relate to her family, childhood and difficult teenage years in Margate and leaving home at the age of fifteen. She studied fashion at Medway College of Design between 1980-82, and from 1983-86 studied printmaking at Maidstone Art College. In 1987 she moved to London to study at the Royal College of Art, from which she graduated with an MA in painting in 1989.
In 1993 Emin opened The Shop with Sarah Lucas, a venue which sold works and memorabilia by both artists. In the same year, the artist's first solo exhibition - My Major Retrospective - was held at White Cube in London. In 1995 she produced Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963−1995, a tent embroidered with the names of everybody she had shared a bed with during the course of her life. She burst into the international consciousness in 1999 when My Bed was exhibited as one of the shortlisted works for the Turner Prize. The unflinching intimacy of these two works is typical of her mature practice and they remain hugely influential.
Emin has described her work as dealing with ‘rites of passage, of time and age, and the simple realisation that we are always alone.' She has also stated that ‘The most beautiful thing is honesty, even if it’s really painful to look at.' Her practice is explicitly feminist and the chosen media integral to the message she wishes to convey. Whether subverting the male dominated categorisation of fine art with embroidered textile works or using industrial neon lighting to render private sensations public, Emin constantly challenges the complacency of the art world and confronts the viewer directly.
Emin has been the subject of numerous major exhibitions across the globe, including: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2002); Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2003); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Malaga, Spain (2008); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2008); Kunstmuseum Bern (2009); Hayward Gallery, London (2011); Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2012); Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2013); Leopold Museum, Vienna (2015); Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France (2017); Musée d’Orsay, Paris (2019); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2020).
