Tracy Emin: She’s gone from enfant terrible to grande dame of art*
Aug 03, 2021
Tracy Emin: She’s gone from enfant terrible to grande dame of art*
Tracey Emin CBE, RA , was born in London in 1963, and grew up in Margate. Emin is an English artist known for her autobiographical artwork which documents her personal history, experiences and feelings. She is one of the most prominent artists and mouthpieces of the contemporary art world. She’s also a staunch advocate for arts education and a philanthropist.
Emin produces work in a variety of media Including drawing, painting, print, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and sewn appliqué. More recently she has extended into the realm of public art, including the “I want my time with you” neon installation, in her distinctive handwritten script, at St Pancras Station.
Once the "enfant terrible" of the Young British Artists (YBA’s) in the 1980s, outspoken, drunk, sweary. This group of artists, championed Charles Saatchi, included Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Angus Fairhurst, often exhibited together and collaborated.
Her traumatic early life led to the production of many of the artworks that she became renowned for, like “Unmade bed” and the infamous tent installation, “Everyone I have ever slept with 1963-1995” the latter of which was destroyed in a fire in an storage warehouse in 2004, which housed many contemporary works of art from the Saatchi collection, also destroyed.
But most people don’t realise her incredible artistic skill in drawing. In fact she was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy between 2011-2013, one of the first two female professors since the Academy was founded in 1768. Her drawings are often interpreted into etchings for prints.
In this poster design, Emin takes Paralympic values of Inspiration and Determination as the starting point and creates what she describes as a ‘love letter’.
Two small birds, delicately perched, appear to kiss beneath the words ‘You inspire me with your determination And I love you’. The Agitos (the Paralympic symbol representing movement) floats below them like feathers or leaves falling from the tree.
Birds have frequently appeared in Emin’s drawings to symbolise freedom and strength, whilst her use of handwritten text expresses personal thoughts and emotions.
Birds have been part of Emin’s practice since she studied ornithology at school, and for a long time, drawing them was her way of expressing herself in the context of an art scene that she felt wasn’t particularly accepting of the emotive work that she wanted to create.
“Birds are so spiritual. Everybody loves birds, especially tiny birds. My mum died about a year and a half ago, and I think a lot of people who have bereavement, when they see birds flying they wonder if a spirit is involved there – if the bird has touched a spirit of someone you love.”
She took 4 years to sculpt 68 bronze birds placed around Sydney in 2018.
Emin has always been inspired by expressionist painters Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele, groundbreaking and also controversial in their day. She produces work which is uninhibited in the way it absorbs and reflects her personal life. Challenging and unapologetically feminist, she explores bodies, feelings and experiences through painted, drawn and sculptural forms.
Madonna described Emin as “intelligent and wounded and not afraid to expose herself. She is provocative but she has something to say”. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Emin a CBE for her contributions to the visual arts.
She is known for her philanthropy, last year she released a limited edition print in aid of a domestic abuse charity. She’s pledged £100,000 towards a proposal for a skatepark in Margate, in line with the sport being the newest to be introduced to the Tokyo Olympics. “But we’ve got some of the best skateboarders in the world. If we built an Olympic skateboard park, and also one for people with disabilities, for wheelchair skating too, we would be the best in the world, probably.”
In the summer of 2020, she was diagnosed with an aggressive bladder cancer which, if left untreated, would likely have killed her by Christmas. Chemotherapy wasn’t an option, so in July she underwent a seven hour surgery to remove the tumour, which although successful, has left her with a permanent disability. All this while making work for several online exhibitions and continuing her charity work.
Since June, though, she hasn’t “really done anything”.
“When I work, I have this mad urge that I want to paint, I want to go crazy,” she says. “I had that urge this week, but I don’t feel well enough. I can’t lift up the canvases, I can’t throw the paint around. I don’t want to be making myself suffer. So I’d rather just sit down and think about it; think about what I’ve done in my life; think about painting; think about the process of it. Look at lots of painting; think about the history of painting, think about painting in a way that I’ve never had time to.”
Recent exhibitions have been at White Cube. Her latest exhibition at the Royal Academy reopened on the 18th May 2021, Tracy Emin/Edvard Munch: the Loneliness of the Soul. It had been open to visitors for less than a month before being closed by the most recent lockdown. But thanks to David Hockney who agreed to move his own show to a different set of rooms, it has remained open for longer allowing hers to stay where it is.
She’s desperate for art to be put back on the school curriculum “as a serious subject. The arts and creativity are so important for people’s welfare and wellbeing, it’s got to be given some importance.”
*By Nancy Durrant@nancydurrant, Evening Standard, 12 May 2021
Here are some other interesting articles and references to Emin for further reading:
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