Tracey Emin continues the slow evisceration of her own body and psyche in her latest show at White Cube. Splayed across the walls is all the blood and torment of a life lived without fear of sadness or pain, but in the full knowledge that it must come.
The figures in these paintings are washed out and ghostly, barely there, fraying at the edges. They lie in beds or baths, curled up in emotional agony, or stood naked and shaking. They’re haunted by spectres, or are becoming spectres themselves. Lovers are pressed together, bodies entwine, but one is always slowly disappearing.
Blood spurts from a figure’s groin as she lies in bed, a halo forming around her head. Death seems to be looming.
The most powerful works here combine words with the imagery. ‘You made me like this. All of you – you – you men that I insanely loved so much’ says one, ‘don’t ask me to die’ says another, ‘I don’t want to have sex because my body feels dead’. Emin lives under the shadow of love; it’s loss, it’s power, it’s potential, it’s ravaging destruction of the self. It’s almost religious in its relentless depiction of suffering. It’s not diaristic, it’s more direct than that, closer to the source of the pain.
The sculptures here, as usual with Emin, are pretty weak, especially the enormous bronze of legs spread like two vast coiling turds. And the whole thing isn’t quite as good as her last show here, so it’s not Emin at her best. But it’s still great: her work is so bare, so raw, so emotional, that it’s overwhelming.
These dripping, messy paintings oscillate between defiant, proud obstinance and injured, quiet shame. They’re an outpouring of ire with a vulnerability that’s as beautiful as it is honest. Love, it really does tear you apart.