Exploration of the Soul
- Artist: Tracey Emin
- Date: 1994
- Medium: Ink, graphite on 32 papers and 2 photographs, colour, chromogenic print, on paper
- Dimensions: support (Text Pages): 295 x 210 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Exploration of the Soul” by Tracey Emin. It’s a thirty‑two page book made of blue A‑4 notepaper and photographs, with ink and graphite written by the artist herself. The pages are bound in a simple frame and look like a diary set in plain office stationery. Emin writes in a poetic, confessional style, beginning with a celebration of nature and human love before moving into deeply personal memories. She recalls her birth, her childhood with her twin brother Paul, their time at the “giant” Hotel International and the complex family dynamics that shaped her early life. The text confronts trauma, depression and the painful realization of her own vulnerability when she was thirteen. The narrative intertwines moments of joy and intense grief, painting a raw picture of a young girl navigating the collision of beauty and pain. The work is notable for its intimacy and for how Emin turns ordinary paper into a powerful, written testimony of her early years.
See it in person
Exploration of the Soul is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
