We start this very comprehensive exhibition of Tracy Emin’s work with what remains of her early work at art school. She destroyed her work in a fit of self-doubt but at least these tiny photographs survive. Seeing them mounted on fragments of canvas they provide a very informative and fascinating collection of images which presage the work that was to come.

It’s great to see some of Emin’s works with fabrics and her own idiosyncratic form of tapestry and embroidery. It’s a form of collage and the effect of these combined images is very bold and moving. You can see she’s channelling those old-school samplers girls might have made at school 150 years ago but has developed the skills into remarkable pieces of art.

Two films, made directly to camera by Emin, express her fury at the way she was treated as a young teenager growing up in Margate. In retrospect it was abuse by local boys and men but she wanted to experience everything that life had to offer. And sometimes her experiences were very unpleasant. These bold self-portraits, depicting moment of huge emotional trauma are very hard to view. They evoke such depths of pain and disappointment in a very immediate way. Looking closely to the works there’s the sense of a palimpsest – of images behind the one we are looking at – which have been erased or corrupted in some way and replaced with the powerful top layer. She also includes very honest assessments in writing of her mental state, views and desires.

And there is the bed. This famous piece from 1998 which bewildered viewers. Now it is understood as the ultimate self-portrait of a time in Emin’s life when she was in a state of breakdown after an abortion, relationship breakdown and lack of self-worth. It has the most amazing atmosphere and you really do pick up on the experience which these items convey.

The exhibition is very much an expression of Emin’s life post the life she lived in her youth. For a while she stopped painting entirely and then, when she picked up a brush again, the work emerged with a whoosh of energy, fury and a need to express her own opinion of all the wrongs that had been done to her and a snub to all the people who never believed she would achieve all that has done.

The show is on at Tate Modern until 31st August 2026.