Monument Valley (Grand Scale) 1997

Tracey Emin made this photograph titled 'Monument Valley' sometime in the late 20th century. What strikes me is the starkness, not just of the landscape, but of the way the picture is put together. There’s this incredible tension in the image between the vast, almost cinematic backdrop of Monument Valley, and the intimacy of this lone figure in her denim, perched on what looks like a thrift store armchair, reading a book. That book, the title is “Exploration of the Soul”. It's as if she’s performing solitude, making it into something almost theatrical, yet also deeply personal. Emin often deals with these kinds of contrasts, raw emotion set against carefully constructed scenarios. I can see the influence of artists like Nan Goldin or maybe Cindy Sherman in the way she uses photography to explore identity and experience. It feels like she's asking, how do we find ourselves in these epic landscapes, in these grand narratives? And, what does it mean to perform that search? It's a conversation, a question, not a statement.