The exhibition takes its title and theme from Tracey Emin’s large scale bronze figure I Lay Here For You, which the artist has sited in a woodland clearing on the threshold between a grove of mature beech trees and the surrounding pastureland. This female figure, monumental in scale and radiating warmth lies perpetually in wait. Her body resists onlookers and her gaze is turned inwards towards herself. In the history of female nudes sited in the landscape, this work by Tracey Emin presents a different narrative on woman’s place in nature.
Across Jupiter’s indoor galleries the image of the artist’s bed appears as a recurring motif. In one series, a lithograph of a faintly outlined bed becomes ground on which Emin overlays Indian ink, featuring couples clinging to each other atop bedsheets, whilst others within the series are left almost bare with a lone figure traced out with minimal brush strokes. When Tracey Emin first exhibited her bed (now titled My Bed) at the Tate in 1999, it swiftly became one of the most iconic artworks of the late 20th Century. After the turmoil of last few years, one can’t help seeing these new works as haunting images of time spent in recovery and of the bed as a site of refuge and retreat, and yet an enduring message of hope resonates through the work, imbued with the possibility of love returning with renewed intensity. Emin paints spaces where privacy belongs, and across all of Jupiter Artland’s gallery spaces, she offers an unflinching look at pain, tenderness, longing and recovery. I Lay Here for You at Jupiter Artland continues until 2 October 2022.
Daily screenings of Emin’s single channel video Homage to Edvard Munch and all My Dead Children will be taking place in the Tin Roof Gallery. The film is screened between 11:00am-11.30am and 3:00pm-3.30pm.
Emin reveals her hopes, humiliations, failures and successes in candid and, at times, excoriating work that is frequently both tragic and humorous. In 2020, a major solo exhibition entitled The Loneliness of the Soul, opened at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The exhibition then toured to the new Munch Museum, Oslo in Summer 2021 to critical acclaim. This summer, Emin will unveil her largest artwork to date The Mother, a permanent public commission for Oslo’s Museum Island.