Tracey Emin exhibits new paintings at Xavier Hufkens

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Sunday, June 16, 2024


Tracey Emin exhibits new paintings at Xavier Hufkens
Tracey Emin in her studio. Photo: Courtesy the Artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels.



BRUSSELS.- Tracey Emin's new exhibition with the gallery revolves around a seminal theme in her oeuvre—love in all its many guises. In a new series of paintings, ranging from the intimately scaled to the monumental, Emin explores the intricacies of the human emotions, revealing a profound understanding of our innermost workings. Gestural brushstrokes and bold use of colour evoke intimacy of the human body and its emotions laid bare. While Emin's commitment to painting has remained steadfast throughout her career, recent years have seen a renewed focus on this core element of her art. This revived attention is evident as she immerses herself deeper into the realm of painting, infusing her art with her personal experiences of love and mortality.

Love permeates Tracey Emin's entire body of work. It transcends mere emotion, manifesting as both a physical act and a mental state. It can be felt as much by the body as by the mind. Emin shows love in its myriad form—from the wondrous to the painful, the obsessive to the elusive. Central to these paintings is the symbiotic relationship between love and time, exploring its past, present, and future manifestations. You Loved Me—Then and I Fucking Loved You capture moments of nostalgia and longing, rooted in the past, while Kissing, Lust and A Feeling embody the immediacy of the present. Please Keep Loving me echoes a sentiment of enduring hope, reflecting Emin's belief in the resilience and continuity of love.

Inextricably linked to the ideas of love and time, however, is death. While not a subject that Emin has ever shied away from in her work—she created a poignant series of paintings about the loss of her mother, for example—it is one that acquires a deeply personal meaning in the context of her recent, life-threatening illness. There's nothing Left of her, and I Melted away both attest to this confrontation with mortality. In I watched Myself die and come alive, we see the artist on a table in a domestic setting, watched over by a shrouded figure. The work is a clear allusion to resurrection: staring death in the face and returning to life. The work has a dream-like quality: a table can have a homely or surgical function; it is not clear if the spectral figure belongs to the constructed reality or the subconscious.

Dreams and sleep, and their antitheses—nightmares and insomnia—are also weaved through the exhibition, alongside the ghosts of past masters. Her painting The Nightmare, for example, echoes the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli's work of the same name from 1781: a dark incubus atop a pale, supine woman. The image reflects Emin's deep engagement with art history, as seen in previous works inspired by Edvard Munch. From My Bed (1998) to Insomnia Room (2019), the artist's nocturnal hours, both good and bad, invariably seep into her work. Several paintings in the exhibition, including I Kept Dreaming, Night Time, and Sleeping with my eyes open extend this trajectory. Water also makes its presence felt, both in the myriad shades of blue that can be seen in the paintings, but also as a motif. It embodies various symbolic interpretations, serving as a symbol of purity and renewal (I wanted to be clean) to one of fear and anxiety (I Kept Drowning).

Most of the works in the exhibition depict the artist—either alone or entwined with another—in a prone position: in a bed, on a table, a chaise longue or sofa. Emin has frequently depicted beds in her work, presenting them as places with both positive and negative connotations: they can be sites of pain and pleasure, or dreams and torments. They remind us of home, but also of hospitals and convalescence. They are where we are born and, traditionally, where we die. But in four vertical self-portraits, the artist is not in repose but erect, facing the viewer. Entitled This is Me, Always A Mirror, You could drink me and I Felt So Much Older, they hint at a process of emotional realignment and acceptance. With the same linear quality as the faces she created for the doors of the National Portrait Gallery in London, Emin's self-portraits show the artist looking out of the frame and into the world.

Tracey Emin (b. 1963, London) lives and works between London, the South of France and Margate, UK. In 2023, she opened an eponymous foundation and art school in Margate, which offers residencies to emerging international artists and stages exhibitions. Recent public commissions include The Doors (2023), a set of bronze doors for the National Portrait Gallery, London; The Mother (2022), a large outdoor bronze for the Munch Museum, Oslo; and I Want My Time With You (2018), a large neon work for St Pancras Station, London.

Recent solo exhibitions include the Munch Museum, Oslo (2021); the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2020); Musée d'Orsay, Paris (2019); Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France (2017); Leopold Museum, Vienna (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida (2013); Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2012); Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2012); Hayward Gallery, London (2011); Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2009); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2008); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Malaga, Spain (2008); Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2003); and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2002).

Tracey Emin represented Great Britain at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. In 2012, she was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her contributions to the visual arts.










Today's News

May 24, 2024

NYC public schools will send 8th graders to visit Holocaust Museum

Then and now: The Whitney Museum compares NYC artworks from its first Biennial to today

Howardena Pindell joins White Cube

Tracey Emin exhibits new paintings at Xavier Hufkens

First major ticketed exhibition, Discovering Degas, opens at The Burrell Collection

Milestone brings summertime fun with eclectic June 15 auction of vintage advertising signs, toys, coin-ops and old coins

Margo Handwerker appointed dean of the Glassell School of Art Core Residency program

He made the Met Opera's chorus the best in the world

The Approach opens 'Adelaide Cioni: True Form'

Exhibition pairs two pioneers of Australian abstraction for the very first time

She wants to make San Francisco Ballet an 'arrow to the future'

'Stax: Soulsville, U.S.A.' review: Looking for a little respect

New York's Palace Theater reopens six years later (and 30 feet higher)

Shirley Conran, author best known for the steamy 'Lace,' dies at 91

Laguna Art Museum unveils 'On the Edge: Los Angeles Art from the Joan and Jack Quinn Family Collection'

Artpace San Antonio announces Fall 2024 International Artists-in-Residence

MOCA Tucson exhibits works by Sara Hubbs & Sarah Zapata

Anthony Meier now represents Libby Black

Belfast Photo Festival views a polarised world through the lens

The siblings who changed how we party

David Zwirner celebrate 30 years with the opening of their flagship Los Angeles gallery

New 'Richard III' raises an old question: Who should wear the crown?

Belvedere announces new publication platform for research in Central European art history

At DanceAfrica, the enduring power of love

The Ultimate Guide to the Best Online Casinos in New Zealand: A Comparative Analysis

3-Card Poker Strategy: Reveal 10 Tips To Win The Game From SGRed18 Experts

Pantone Color Matching for Custom Stickers

How Does a Free 3D Model AI Generator Work?

What Directional Drilling machinery do I need?

Art Report: Xueer Gao's "Hazy View, Lake Vapor

The Hidden Gems of British Cities: Which Will Be Your Favorite?

The 8th Street: Law Enforcement-Trusted Spy Detector Tools




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful