Tracey Emin

Mother (from Family Suite)

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About this artwork

In Family Suite, Tracey Emin deals with the autobiographical subjects to which she has repeatedly returned since the 1990s including family, sex, and abortion. The series recalls moments from Emin’s youth in the English seaside town of Margate, where she lived with her mother and twin brother Paul in a hotel run by her father. Comprised of 20 sheets – of which two are shown here – they do not offer a linear narrative. Instead, they read as dream-like snapshots, the imperfect quality of the line mirroring the fragile and fragmentary nature of memory. Refiguring the past as a set of stories, Emin has said ‘I work with what I know. But it goes beyond that. I start with myself and end up with the universe.’

Updated May 2023

  • artist:
    Tracey Emin (born 1963) English
  • title:
    Mother (from Family Suite)
  • date created:
    1994
  • materials:
    Monoprint
  • measurements:
    11.60 x 10.60 cm (framed 38.00 x 36.50 cm)
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Purchased with assistance from Art Fund, the Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland and the Gibson Bequest, 2005
  • accession number:
    GMA 4784 H
  • gallery:
  • subject:
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Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin