The shocks are forthright but straight from the art

OVER the entrance door there is a gigantic image of a hand holding a thick paintbrush, the bare legs of the artist visible beside it.

To the side entrance can be seen rows of small-framed pictures and letters, while in the distance there is the unmistakable sound of a woman screaming out in agony.

Welcome to the Tracey Emin show.

The artist was at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to launch the first major retrospective of her work ever held in the UK which opens at the gallery today.

Tracey Emin: 20 Years, covers the 45-year-old Margate-born artist's entire career, and unsurprisingly given her frank exploration of her life – including her rape at the age of 13, her sexually promiscuous adolescence and her abortions – it comes with a warning of graphic content.

Emin, in buoyant mood despite the seemingly endless demands of a scrum of photographers, was, as expected, totally frank in talking about her the exhibition, and admitted she had been concerned that people might find it – and so, essentially, her – a bit too much to take.

"It has been very difficult," she said, pausing to explain that the distant and repetitive sound of agonised screaming that could be heard from another room was indeed a recording of her own voice.

"By the end of the week I felt physically sick of myself, I was totally consumed of myself to the point that I couldn't take it anymore.

"I suddenly thought that if I can't take it, what would everyone visiting the show think?

"Hopefully, though, they will be able to cut off that Tracey bit and just see the work."

It is well known that the artist's work focuses on her own life and her often tragic personal experiences. Included in the exhibition are collections of old letters and pictures, and the touching piece Uncle Colin, a collection of seemingly random artefacts relating to a favourite uncle who was killed in a car crash.

There are also dentures and dental charts from a period where she suffered toothache, the video piece Conversation with my Mum (2001), which is shown on a tiny television screen in front of two children's chairs, and another, more light-hearted video work, Why I Never Became a Dancer, part of which features the artist doing a dance routine that wouldn't look out of place in an exercise video.

Then there are the controversial pieces, including My Bed, probably Emin's most famous work, which consists of her unmade bed surrounded by the often ugly debris of her life at a time when she was suicidal.

It caused a sensation when first shown at the Tate Gallery in 1999, and here it is perfectly complemented by two hanging neon pieces from the same period.

There are hundreds of tiny paintings set out on shelves, clothes hanging on individual racks, and large scale installations such as the 2005 piece It's Not the Way I Want to Die, a ramshackle rollercoaster track running out of, and into, the same piece of wall.

That work almost encapsulates the experience Emin wants visitors to the show to have.

"Hopefully they will feel the highs and lows, going up and down with each room, and will have a different emotional experience in each one," she said.

"The bed was a fantastic, seminal piece of work, and the tent (Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995, (1995)] was great and another seminal piece for me, but there was a lot of work done before that. It's not all about me, and hopefully people will discover some of my other work."

Among the pieces the artist said she was most proud of were her appliqued blankets, including a piece called Star Trek Voyager which was sold for £800,000 at Elton John's annual charity auction for the Aids Foundation last year.

Emin has been in Edinburgh for more than a week putting the finishing touches to the show, and admitted she loved it here, as "I feel really famous".

Asked how she felt her show might compare to the Impressionism and Scotland exhibition at the National Gallery on the Mound, featuring works by artists such as Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, and Van Gogh, she was typically forthright.

"The last kind of artist I would ever want to be is an impressionist, so it is really the polar opposite to this show and I think that's great," she said. "It would be nice if everyone who went to see the impressionists also came here, and vice-versa.

"Edinburgh is definitely ready for this exhibition. People here are less cynical maybe, they are very straight with you and say what they think, and I have had a lot of people saying they really like my work."

After the launch, Emin headed off past a small photograph of herself naked, surrounded by paints and brushes, consumed by her work.

Like the image that dominates the entrance, and the sound of screaming, it is another example of how her art is so tied-up with who she is, and what she is.

Her celebrity, and the unique chance to see so many of her most pieces in one place, is certain to ensure the show is a huge success.

But it is her undeniable ability to examine her own worst memories and personal flaws and failings in such an expressive, honest and public way that mark this as an exhibition which deserves to be seen.

Five Highlights from Tracey Emin: 20 Years

1. My Bed (1998) – Probably Emin's most celebrated work. An installation of her unmade, stained, dirty bed surrounded by half-empty vodka bottles, condoms and other debris from her life at a time when she had suicidal depression.

2. The Perfect Place To Grow (2001) – A video installation hidden in a wooden birdhouse up some rickety steps and surrounded by plants, this was dedicated to her father.

3. It's Not The Way I Want To Die (2005) – The large rollercoaster installation created from salvaged bits of wood and metal.

4. Uncle Colin (1963-93) – A homage of artefacts relating to Emin's uncle, who was killed in a car crash. Includes a crumpled packet of cigarettes found in the crash.

5. Why I Never Became A Dancer (1995) – A video piece exploring Emin's early life in Margate, and her childhood dreams of becoming a dancer

• www.nationalgalleries.org