Almost 30 years ago Tracey Emin became a household name with her provocative art and equally provocative personality. She and her contemporaries challenged the art establishment and Emin challenged patriarchal attitudes way beyond the art world and became an exemplary voice challenging the status quo.

In the intervening years her art has retained that challenge, it is at once incredibly personal, totally unapologetic and totally liberating. It often feels like painful scream, but it always makes you think.

Last week I had a short stopover in London after a couple of weeks visiting family so armed with my new Tate membership I headed to Tate Modern to see the new Tracey Emin Exhibition ‘A Second Life‘.

Today I want to share a selection of the textile pieces exhibited, to focus both on message but also on technique. Introducing the textile works the gallery information board quotes Emin from 2010:

I have alway’s called them blankets. They were most definitely blankets at the beginning because they were made with the intention of going on a bed. Quilt making has always been considered a craft. It’s never been held up in the realms of high art. But I hope, I feel, that my practice has managed to change some of these conceptions. I have always treated my blanket-making more like painting in terms of building up layers and Textures.

I have alway’s called them blankets. They were most definitely blankets at the beginning because they were made with the intention of going on a bed. Quilt making has always been considered a craft. It’s never been held up in the realms of high art. But I hope, I feel, that my practice has managed to change some of these conceptions. I have always treated my blanket-making more like painting in terms of building up layers and Textures.

Hotel International, 1993 was Emin’s first quilted blanket and establishes many of the techniques she will continue to use. Appliquéd lettering layered onto fabrics then stitched to the ground, hand written text on fabric, ribbon and other embellishment used for emphasis. The piece also established the autobiographical nature of the work with references to Emin’s childhood, including the names of people and places from her childhood, and handwritten memories.

MARIA WAS DRUNK AND GOING CRAZY – SMASHING THE WHOLE KITCHEN UP – I SCREAMED AT HER IF YOU WANT TO  WANT TO SMASH THINGS – DESTROY YOUR WON STIFF – NOT MINE – OR OURS – SHE PICKED UP HER FAVOURITE ART DECO VARSE RAN ACROSS THE ROOM – AND SMASHED IT ACROSS MY HEAD – SCREAMING I’VE GOT TO GET AWAY FROM YOU – IT WAS LIKE WE WEW CHILDREN AGAIN – AFRAID OF GROWING

Mad Tracey from Margate. Everyone’s been there, 1997

The close up of the edge of this piece shows the traditional blanket stitch and you can see that the ground fabric is indeed the type of traditional woollen blanket that many of use were brought up with on their beds, and some of us still use.

This is a particularly detailed piece where you can really see the layering of colours and textures and the use of floral fabrics whilst closer examination of the texts references traumatic experiences and memories, as does the title:

Now when I think about calling myself ‘Mad Tracey from Margate’. It wasn’t what I called myself, it’s what other people called me. It’s quite cruel, really. And weirdly enough, using the word Margate in my work is something I’ll never let go of. I’ll never let go of where |I grew up, even when it was cruel.’
Emin, 2025, quoted in gallery text.

No Chance (WHAT A YEAR), 1999.

Emin has said to have effectively left school at the age of 13 in 1977 which was also the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in the UK and union flags were literally everywhere that year. This pieces uses the techniques noted above to reflect on Emin’s experience of school with disaffection and rejection clear motifs. This juxtaposition of everyday fabrics and soft textures with the harsh words really heightens then impact of these works.

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The Last of the Gold 2002,

This piece presents 26 handwritten notes from the artist detailing an “A to Z of abortion, each contains information regarding contraception and abortion. This Tate exhibition is its first public showing. It again combines of text written on textiles as well as appliqué and other more traditional quilting techniques.

C – Go straight to the chemist and buy the morning after pill. The morning after pill has the most stupid name because it actually works up to 72 hours after, so don’t freak out if you’re nowhere near a chemist – or there all closed – call talking pages They will tell you your nearest chemist. Or go to A&E at the nearest hospital.

J – DO NOT KEEP YOUR PREGNANACY A GUARDED SECRET LIKE THE CROWN JEWELS AS YOU MAY NEED MORAL SUPPORT. YOU WILL FEEL SHIT, WEAK MABE SICK AND AFRAID TO TALK IT THROUGH

There’s a lot of Money in Chairs, 1994

Previously shown at a Royal Academy summer exhibition, this piece was inspired by a phrase Emin’s grandmother used. The chair itself was given to Emin by her Nan who had owned the chair for most of her life by this point and it was a bit shabby. Through appliqué Emin has turned it into a family momento or heirloom marking the nick names that she and her Nan had for each, ‘Pudding’ and ‘Plum’, her Nan’s year of birth and her own, the name of her twin brother, Paul and patches with snippets of family conversation.

All of these works are incredibly personal, political and engaging. They speak to particular forms of gendered violence and trauma within wider social inequality, experience of poverty and rascism, themes we see in all of Emin’s work and about which, as her textiles show, she is incredibly eloquent without ever losing her edge.

This is not the extent of Emin’s textile work. She also has a large body of embroideries as represented by that below. While some of these use text some, like this one, are more akin to sketches with lines of stitching looking from a distance like the pencil lines of a drawing.

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While I’ve focussed on the textiles in the exhibition in this post, as a whole the exhibition reflects a much broader body of work with video, installation, sculpture, photography and painting coming together to create the narrative of the artist.

I would heartily recommend the exhibition, but it was very crowded. Even with timed tickets there were pinch points where it was simply impossible to move. Unfortunately some of these were around the textiles and the room with many of the blankets, the chair and a wooden rollercoaster installation entitled Not the Way I want to Die was so difficult to navigate that the sensors kept going off as people, including me, got too close to the works just trying to move through or find a good vantage point to examine the details!

There was however, more space in the rooms housing the paintings towards the end of the exhibition showing more recent work. I hope this is a result of their novelty and being newer works rather than the relative importance given to the medium!

If you get a chance to go, as I said, I do recommend it. If not, there is an audio guide available online that may be of interest. I came away feeling quite inspired by the exhibition, I wonder, does such an immersion in someone else’s creativity feed your own? I think it does mine and it stretches me to think about how to integrate this into my everyday life, surroundings and political engagements. I’d love to know what you think about this.

Until next time, happing knitting, and stitching,
All the best,
Tess xxxx