Tracey Emin's new set of 8 lithographs depicting herself are incredibly personal auto portraits and revelatory. Viewed almost as an intimate tiny sketchbook of herself, a visual diary. These editions are great examples of Emin's radical painting style which has been influenced by Expressionism. These works showcase universal feelings, raw and bittersweet emotions, which are Emin’s constant subject surrounded around the idea of love, loss, intimacy, and longing. In making herself the subject of her work, and concentrating intensely on figuration, Emin creates bridges with the rich art-historical tradition of the female figure and female nudes. She shows strong emotive force in these pictures, as seen for example in the work of male painters Munch and Schiele, which Emin admires and studied throughout her artistic oeuvre.
“ When I was younger I was completely obsessed by Picasso’s Madonna and Child, I did a lots of versions of it, especially when I was at the Royal College of Art. What is so strange, is I did this drawing and I didn’t like and then I put these crazy bat ears on it and it was really funny, but when I removed the bat ears and printed in blue added the breast underneath, this made it very mothering and soft. „