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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Simon Hattenstone

The radical, ravishing rebirth of Tracey Emin: ‘I didn’t want to die as some mediocre YBA’

Tracey Emin, June 2023, South of France Studio, taken by TE creative director Harry Weller.
Tracey Emin, June 2023, South of France Studio, taken by TE creative director Harry Weller. Photograph: Harry Weller

A man and woman are depicted having sex on the huge white canvas: their bodies outlined in blood-red lines, faces barely there, legs wrapped over and into each other like a chain puzzle. Above the couple, and merging with them, are the words: “You keep fucking me,” repeated 12 times in horizontal lines. Look at it vertically and at one point it becomes: “You keep fucking you.”

It could only be painted by Tracey Emin – the scratchy primitivism, the intensity of the act, the words. Words have always been important to Emin. The painting is a celebration of carnality, a howl of emotional abuse and a nod to narcissism. It sums up Emin’s work perfectly.

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