Emin’s latest exhibition of new work fills White Cube in Bermondsey with the angst and anguish of a scorned lover; a person who has been wronged through love, who leaves, or is left.
The main corridor is lined with miniature paintings, aggressive and sensual in their composition. The larger spaces house the bigger pieces, which tower over the viewer. Continuing to explore themes we have seen from Emin before - bedrooms, sensuality, sex - and toying with absence, there is an almost snarky edgy quality to some of them, despite the anguish they depict. They feel like a breakup song, replete with searing guitar riffs and mashed keyboards. Most stunning were the scenes where the lover is so faint, painted over in white, that it appears to be only the imprint their body left in the bed, not the lover themself. The memory of their warmth.
There is anger here, which at times bubbles, but then fades. A memory of the anger - as much with oneself for being tricked as with the former lover for the transgression.
