TRACEY EMIN: I FOLLOWED YOU TO THE END

Tracey Emin returns to White Cube Bermondsey with her solo exhibition, ‘I followed you to the end’, a presentation of new paintings and sculptures that journey through love and loss, mortality and rebirth.

September 19 – November 10, 2024

The exhibition celebrates Emin’s expressive painterly vocabulary, focusing on the medium that has occupied and engaged the artist in recent years.

Deft, impulsive strokes capture figures in the throes of becoming, while a palette of carmine, ivory, deep blues and black temper the volatility of physical and emotional states with intervals of contemplation and stillness.

Serving as a fulcrum for the exhibition’s psychical journey, the titular painting I Followed you to the end (2024) elicits the plaintive anguish wrought from the complexities of love.

Bathed in a tempest of red and black, the outline of a solitary female figure is framed by a handwritten exhortation to the lovers that have mistreated her: ‘You made me like this. All of you – you – you men that I so insanely loved so much. You are the ones that made me feel so alone. All of you – each of you in your individual way. I – I – I – was at fault to keep loving you. Like a fool I followed love to the end. Like the sad haunted soul that I am, I followed you to the end’.

Though painting has become increasingly central to Emin’s practice in recent years, she has continued to create sculpture, as evidenced by the two new bronze works featured in this exhibition.

The smaller counterpart, Ascension (2024), presents a female torso in repose and echoes the figure depicted in My Dead Body – A Trace of Life, although mounted on the wall in a manner reminiscent of a crucifixion.

The monumental sculpture, I Followed You To The End (2024), commands the central space of the South Galleries. At first glance, its form appears abstract, with textured ridges and dimpled impressions suggestive of a rugged landscape. Navigating around and drawing back from the work, the lower anatomy of a figure reveals itself, with sprawled legs ambiguously parted as tender invitation or brutal subjugation.

With its deeply worked surfaces directly capturing the imprints from moulding by the artist’s hand, the sculpture evokes a sensuous intimacy that belies its vast scale.