The loneliness of the soul - Tracey Emin & Edvard Munch

How do the works situate/ operate within the space / with the audience?

They are hanging flat on the wall at eye level so they are clearly displayed and they almost ‘narrate’ a story when you move from one to the next. They are large scale which can be overwhelming for the audience to look at/take in and they are very raw and visceral which evoke powerful emotions in the audience.

What is the subject matter, materials, methods and wider critical context of the work?

Tracey Emin has used themes of sadness, lossy, grief and trauma, through her work she has shared the emotions from her life experiences such as having surgery for her bladder cancer, being raped, abortions, love, loss and relationships. She paints also about femininity and womanhood. She uses oil paint on canvas in layers, sometimes using dry brush and sometimes using wet brush and letting the paint drip down the canvas which has connotations of ‘bleeding’.

Her work titles are all poetic such as, “Because you kept touching me and you were here like the ground underneath my feet”, which can be taken to mean departed lovers, unborn children, lost youth, failed art, the voices in her head.

Explain each work that you are mostly drawn towards. Think about why this artist and work is making such an impact;

I was most drawn to her piece called “I am the last of my kind” because it had a passage of writing scrawled across the background that was about love and loss which really added to the deep emotions conveyed through the piece. She used very emotive language and wrote some words in bold as well as letting them drip/ ‘bleed’ down the canvas which helped to narrate the painting in a raw and heartfelt way.

The second piece of work I liked was called, “It -didn’t stop- I didn’t stop, to me this piece brought about feelings of despair, loss and heartbreak but also made me think of trauma such as the artists rape experience in her early life. She used a lot of layering of paint in this piece with drips showing through in the background covered up by a layer of thick white paint and then the figure/s are drawn over the top in blue-black paint, the crimson paint has been ‘smothered’ on the canvas making it look like blood stains which I found very unpleasant and emotional to look at.

Identify elements such as drawing, mixed media or organic elements that can move the work forward. Identify where artist has taken risks with the paint and colour decisions;

The figures in Emin’s paintings are almost ‘drawn’ on with a dry brush and there aren’t complex figures they’re just impressions of the human form -like mirages/ memories. This helps to convey her themes because it s almost as if the life has been sucked out of her human body as well as the fact that the memory of emotional/ traumatic events can often be clouded/foggy. She chose to use crimson coloured paint against white paint which was quite a bold choice but it creates a dramatic, raw and visceral impact. She messily wipes/smothers the paint across the canvas which can be viewed as stains such as blood stains.

Think about invention and pictorial illusion. Explain about the use of composition and the source matter;

She paints the figure/s in a disorderly way making it look like as bit of a blur and like the bodies are on top of one another alluding to themes of sexual intercourse and rape. She leaves quite a lot of white space on the canvas so that your eye is drawn to the chaos of the red, blue black smears as well as the figures. The colours in the works are bold against a plain background, the texture of the paint appears scratchy and smeared which adds to the conveyed emotions of pain. She paints using her memory of trauma/emotional events and she portrays how she felt during those times. She paints the scenes of events she has experienced almost looking at them from an outsiders point of view (voyeur) and she imagines how that scene would’ve appeared through someone else’s eyes as well as using her own memory and emotions to produce her works.

Part 2: fine art painting specialism

Part 2: fine art painting specialism

Gallery visit - Tracey Emin and Edvard Munch exhibition

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