Working across drawing, painting, textiles, sculpture, and performance, Tracey Emin (b.1963) places her own biography at the centre of her art. Raised in the English seaside town of Margate, she studied at London’s Royal College of Art before shooting to fame as one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) in the 1990s. Her intimate and confessional work frequently addresses traumatic personal events, including sexual assault, abortion and mental health crises. Since she underwent lifesaving surgery for bladder cancer in 2020, Emin’s paintings have become more centred on the frailty and vulnerability of the human body. In this sketch-like self-portrait, a single blue hue is used to depict the artist reclining on a bed. The paint has been applied using a range of gestural marks and
varying opacities to achieve dynamic contrasts. In places, the pigment has been allowed to drip, elsewhere, it forms decisive lines, delineating her naked body.