Tracey Emin Monotypes - Carolina Nitsch

Tr a c e y E m i n Monotypes CAROLINA NITSCH

Tracey Emin’s Monotypes, completed in the Spring and Fall of 2015, are a series of figurative works which illustrate her shifting sensibilities of passion, love and permanence. Emin started printmaking in the mid 1980’s even before attending Maidstone College of Art where she studied the medium. Transferring her texts and drawings has often been an important aspect of her practice. From her earliest monoprint/drawings to her print collaboration with Louise Bourgeois in 2010 entitled “Do Not Abandon Me” (also published by Carolina Nitsch), Emin has been making prints in one form or another. Nitsch introduced Emin to master printer Maurice Sanchez at his studio in Long Island City to produce a series of works on paper. Working in a very fluid manner on a Plexiglas plate, Tracey shaped a penetrating sequence of figures that are at once classical and intensely personal.

Monotype printing is a method for an artist to draw or paint on a substrate, which is then transferred to paper through a press. There is no matrix as in reproductive printing so each print is in essence, unique. This transfer process yields particularly exceptional qualities in the image that cannot be achieved any other way.

A certain aqueous fluidity reveals itself that could not be realized by painting on paper alone. After the initial print a few more “pulls” can be achieved, although these are lighter and are called “ghost prints”. With some of these ghost prints, Emin then painted directly on the paper to pull back some of the hidden elements producing a hybrid of drawing and print.

The works in this series are overtly traditional yet deeply individual. Some of the images recall Michelangelo’s late “prisoner” sculptures where the figures appear to be struggling to free themselves from stone. One could also find elements of Courbet, Manet, Rodin and of course Schiele. Emin’s affinity to Egon Schiele is unmistakable and it is from this modernist sensibility that she draws and expands upon. Themes of provocation and sexuality are apparent in many compositions while others speak of unrequited love, suffering, longing and desire. Emin is probing the difficult expanse between love and lust; loneliness and being at peace, alone; bitter separation and letting go without attachment. These works on paper are like poems, hinting at a selfreflective journey of love.

Old School, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper Signed, dated, titled 38 ¼ x 26 ¾ inches (97.2 x 67.9 cm) EMI-0064 $25,000

On the Floor, 2015 Monotype diptych on Somerset paper Signed, dated, titled 41 ½ x 55 inches (105.4 x 139.7cm) EMI-0084 $45,000

Inside My Heart, 2015 Monotype on two sheets 41 5/8 x 55 1/8 in. (105.7 x 140 cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0014 $45,000

Moving Fast Away, 2015 Monotype diptych on Somerset paper 41 ½ x 55 inches (105.4 x 139.7cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0078 $45,000

Moving Fast Away (Pink), 2015 Monotype diptych on Somerset paper 41 ½ x 55 inches (105.4 x 139.7cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0079 $45,000

You Are Always There, 2015 Monotype diptych on Somerset paper 41 ½ x 55 inches (105.4 x 139.7cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0082 $45,000

An Ordinary Day, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 29 ½ x 38 ¾ inches (74.9 x 98.4 cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0049 $25,000

Kiss Me Please Kiss Me, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 29 ½ x 38 ¾ inches (74.9 x 96.5 cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0056 $25,000

I Held You So Hard, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 29 ½ x 38 ¾ inches (74.9 x 96.5 cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0059 $25,000

And I Love You, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 26 ½ x 36 ¾ inches (67.3 x 93.3 cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0046 $25,000

Sleeping on a Sunday, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 26 ¾ x 36 ½ inches (67.9 x 92.7 cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0053 $25,000

Sunday Morning with You, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 29 ¼ x 43 inches (74.3 x 109.2 cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0030 $25,000

Stone Love, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 22 ¼ x 30 ¼ inches (56.5 x 76.8cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0104 $20,000

I Have Buried My Heart, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 22 ¼ x 30 ¼ inches (56.5 x 76.8cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0103 $20,000

To Be Awake With You, 2015 Monotype 30 ¼ x 44 ½ inches (76.8 x 113 cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0026 $40,000

Pray To Be With You, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 22 ¼ x 30 ¼ inches (56.5 x 76.8cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0090 $20,000

Another Beautiful Morning, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 22 ¼ x 30 ¼ inches (56.5 x 76.8cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0092 $20,000

She Wanted to Be With You, 2015 Monotype on Somerset paper 22 ¼ x 30 ¼ inches (56.5 x 76.8cm) Signed, dated, titled EMI-0110 $20,000

Tracey Emin’s art is one of disclosure, using her life events as inspiration for works ranging from painting, drawing, video and installation, to photography, needlework and sculpture.

Emin reveals her hopes, humiliations, failures and successes in candid and, at times, excoriating work that is frequently both tragic and humorous.

Emin’s work has an immediacy and often sexually provocative attitude that firmly locates her oeuvre within the tradition of feminist discourse. By re-appropriating conventional handicraft techniques – or ‘women’s work’ – for radical intentions, Emin’s work resonates with the feminist tenets of the ‘personal as political’. In Everyone I’ve Ever Slept With, Emin used the process of appliqué to inscribe the names of lovers, friends and family within a small tent, into which the viewer had to crawl inside, becoming both voyeur and confidante. Her interest in the work of Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele particularly inform Emin’s paintings, monoprints and drawings, which explore complex personal states and ideas of self-representation through manifestly expressionist styles and themes.

Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963, and studied at Maidstone College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. In 2007 Emin represented Britain at the 52nd Venice Biennale, becoming the second female artist to ever do so. That same year, Emin was made a Royal Academician and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Art, a Doctor of Letters from the University of Kent and a Doctor of Philosophy from London Metropolitan University.

In 2011 she became the Royal Academy's Professor of Drawing and in 2012, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her contributions to the visual arts.

In 2008 Emin had her first major retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, which toured to CAC, Malaga (2008) and Kunstmuseum Bern (2009).

Her extensive exhibition history includes solo and group exhibitions at Blumenbar Verlag, Berlin (2008); Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2010); Blanton Museum of Art, Austin (2010); a major survey exhibition Love Is What You Want at the Hayward Gallery, London (2011); Turner Contemporary, Margate (2012); Malba – Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina (2012); a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2013); a two-person show with Egon Schiele at The Leopold Museum, Vienna (2015) and a room at Tate Britain featuring ‘My Bed’ and works by Francis Bacon (2015).

Emin's work can be found in numerous public and private collections around the world, including the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo; Camden Arts Centre, London; Hara Museum, Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum van Loon, Amsterdam; National Portrait Gallery, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Saatchi Collection, London; Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis; and Tate Britain, London. The artist lives and works in London, England.

CAROLINA

NITSCH

101 Wooster Street New York 10012 info@carolinanitsch.com +1 (212) 463-0610 www.carolinanitsch.com