LOVE IS WHAT YOU WANT (Tracey Emin at the Hayward)

Yesterday I went to see Tracey Emin's exhibition at the Hayward. It was amazing.
I was very drawn to how personal her work is and I have always identified with her in that respect, but I don't think, before seeing this exhibit, I realised just how personal it was. Diary entries became works of art, videos showed her interviewing her mother or telling personal life stories.

I was left pretty shocked by one of the videos (about one of her abortions) and still have not got my head around how I feel about it. Prehaps it was meant to shock, but it seemed so honest. Afterwards the word which came to my mind for how i felt was traumatized. But that is too strong a word, as what Emin went through was real trauma.

My favourite pieces were the paintings, which were just beautiful and also seemed very natural and emotive. I had thought, previous to going to the show, that I would enjoy the light works the most, however the paintings were fabulous.

I did see some of the most prolific pieces from Emin's career, such as her quilts, and whilst I enjoyed these, they were not the highlight of the exhibition for me. I think I was so blown away by the painting and the video work that they paled in comparison. They were however, part of her early work and it seems as though she has matured enormously over the course of her career.

I am very inspired now and feel very much like painting. I also think I should incorporate writing into my work more, which is a feeling I have had for a while now.

I am still processing how I feel with regards to the abortion video, I don't think I have ever seen anything which has made me feel so uncomfortable, yet intensely interested. I feel morbidly fascinated with the subject, but at the same time horrified.




I went to the exhibit with Tess, you can read her review here:

http://rational-romanticist.blogspot.com/2011/08/tracy-emin-love-is-what-you-want.html

More resin experimentation

Made these on Saturday, they are similar to the ones I did last semester in University, only this time I used a better mold, which was much better as It did not need any vaseline and so the whole process was a lot cleaner. Also the surface is a lot smoother.

Not really sure where I'm going with this yet but It gave me some interesting ideas, so the next time I do it I will explore those and then write more about it.

At the moment I am skirting around ideas of preservation and burial.

Also this summer:

I have been working on some polaroids of a form of body documentation, shall we say. There are not enough for it to be a finished series yet, but I will post when there are.

Currently reading:

Rachel Hannah - A room Swept White
Nicole Krauss - The History of Love
Kevin Fanning - How I learned to Love you from so Far Away
(The last two are particularly good and I definitely recommend them, the first is for book club)