Tracey Emin: Getting Out of My Bed

Entry into the Art World

Tracey Emin started her artistic training at a design college, obtaining a Bachelor‘s degree in printmaking. In 1995, she moved to London to pursue a Master’s in painting at the Royal College of Art.

She gained recognition early through rough art pieces, which question themes such as female intimacy and suffering, deviating from their conventional portrayal, often romanticized through the male gaze. Emin represents, and it’s arguably what makes her work so powerful, the ugliness of living in a deeply misogynistic system.

In one of her significant works, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, she explored tenderness through this tribute to every person she has shared a bed with, from her grandmother to her lovers. However, this piece is often misinterpreted as a kind of record of sexual partners, highlighting the societal malaise surrounding a woman addressing intimacy.

Violated Bodies

Even though it is not the most recognized part of her œuvre, Emin is primarily a drawer and painter. Her canvases are autobiographical and violently expressive. She predominantly illustrates female figures with a dominant use of shades of pink, blood red, and dark tones, occasionally incorporating text, through which she addresses the body traumas.

In these almost abstract representations of the profound suffering caused by systemic sexualization of women and rape culture, the artist offers a paradoxically realistic depiction of body dissociation. Despite the absence of explicit political revendication, her artworks are honest testimonies, denouncing the harm caused by the patriarchal system on women, in a way that is perhaps more impactful. These visual works seem to act like a cathartic depiction of a healing process.

Mother

In 2016, Tracey Emin lost her mother. She expressed the unspeakable pain connected with this experience through art, as a way of dealing with her grief and managing her insomnia.

Internally linked to the notion of care, motherhood occupies a significant importance within Emin’s œuvre. In 2022, she unveiled a 9-meter bronze sculpture on the Inger Munch’s pier in Oslo. The painter Edvard Munch, one of Emin’s greatest inspirations, shares with her the grief of his mother. Through this monumental work, Emin has given him an eternal figure to watch over him.

From one perspective, the mother can be seen as a symbol of protection, tenderness, and love. Conversely, it represents a political strategy of control over the female body. In a film from 1996, the artist discussed two abortions she had gotten, exposing their physical and psychological impact, as well as the blame she received from the medical staff. Legal—and therefore safe—abortion access should be a right, however, it is often considered a moral guilt. As a response, Emin produced a new work in 2002, from the perspective of empowerment, dedicated to individuals who would undergo this process. The Last of the Gold is a quilted piece that includes A to Z advice on abortion, both practical and emotional.

Getting out of Her Body

As we can see, the art of Tracey Emin is largely autobiographical. However, looking closely at her harsh writing and imagery, one might discern a bird. As a symbol of freedom and strength, birds are a recurring motif in the artist’s lithographs and sculptures. Of what seems to be a sort of anomaly in her portfolio, she has stated:

Today

Throughout her career, Tracey Emin has featured 300 exhibitions. Recently, a solo show was held at the White Cube in London—which hosted her first exhibition in 1993—and another one is scheduled for March 2025 at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. Additionally, she participated in collaborative exhibitions with prominent figures from art history, including Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele, her primary influences. Emin recently confessed that enjoying the exercise of juxtaposition while suffering from cancer, she made, as a testament, a list of artists she refuses to ever be exhibited with.

Although Tracey Emin is often reduced to her most famous work, My Bed, her œuvre was and still is highly prolific, making it impossible to encompass it in its entirety in a single article. Through a wide range of mediums, including installation, drawing, painting, tapestry, sculpture, but also neon, photography, and performance, this contemporary artist has created a visual autobiography that reflects her experiences as a white, urban woman evolving in a profoundly misogynistic and insensitive society.