Tracy Emin - White Cube Exhibition

Tracy Emin

"A Fortnight of Tears"

White Cube Gallery Exhibition

Tracy Emin explores women's pain in her new exhibit. There was a range of media here, including painting, photography, and sculpture. Many of the figures she portrays are painted to that they appear ghostly or translucent, intentionally half-realized and fading in certain respects. For this reason the figures take on a sort of disturbed, pained and sad quality which is emotionally affecting.

Some paintings demonstrate a deliberate violence to them in the forceful nature of the brushwork.

I particularly like the brushwork here, and use of thinned paint, allowed to drip through the figure and down the sides of the canvas, giving it an dismayed quality which I find compelling. The use of Stark white against the cream background provides a nice soft contrast, reflecting the femininity of the painting.

The 'Insomnia Room' is particularly unsettling. This room features many blown up camera phone "selfies" showing the artist in her bed, extremely tired but unable to sleep. This room is visually intimate and uncomfortable as you are forced to address emotion and visible injuries on her face. This would have to be my least favorite part of the exhibition as I find the modern day culture of "selfies" and documenting everyday moments of one-self narcissistic and less interesting as it is so ever present in all aspects of society today. This makes it practically inescapable and suffocating.

Her sculpted works confront the space, mirroring her paintings well, a freestanding example of the themes present in her work.