A video showing her dead mother’s ashes and 50 huge self-portraits taken as she struggled with insomnia feature in Tracey Emin’s vast new show.
The artist has taken over the 5,440 square metres of the White Cube gallery in Bermondsey, filling it with dozens of paintings, films and huge bronze sculptures.
Emin, whose mother Pam died in 2016, has called the show A Fortnight Of Tears and it includes paintings entitled Bye Bye Mum and I Was Too Young To Be Carrying Your Ashes. One film shows the box containing her mother’s ashes on a table at her east London home.
The gallery’s Irene Bradbury said: “[Emin] showed all the staff on Friday around the exhibition and there were tears because you cannot not be moved. It’s going to be a tough exhibition for her just to show people round and talk about.
“But this process, of when extreme traumas happen, channels into the art and the art is the backbone that gives her this outpouring she can verbalise and visualise.”
From February 6-April 7.
