Tracey Emin: A Journey of Self-Expression and Artistic Evolution

Key Takeaways

• Tracey Emin is a leading English artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork.
• Her use of various media, including painting, sculpture, and photography, has contributed to her prominence in the contemporary art world.
• Emin's artwork often explores themes of personal trauma, intimacy, and identity.
• She has been recognized through her appointments as a professor at the Royal Academy and her exhibitions at prominent museums.
• Emin's market engagement is significant, with pieces like "I Promise To Love You, And Then Again at 5am" listed at 35,000 GBP.
• Her contributions to contemporary art have elevated women's experiences and challenged societal norms.

Tracey Emin is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional works across various media. A former member of the Young British Artists, she is now a Royal Academician. Her most famous works include Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 and My Bed, both provocative and deeply personal. She was a Turner Prize nominee in 1999 and has exhibited internationally. Emin has also held academic positions and supports young artists through the TKE Studios in Margate.

A Life in Art and Self-Expression

Dame Tracey Karima Emin DBE RA (born July 3, 1963) is a British artist celebrated for her deeply personal and autobiographical works. She explores a range of artistic mediums, including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon installations, and fabric appliqué. Once regarded as the "enfant terrible" of the Young British Artists movement in the 1980s, she has since gained recognition as a Royal Academician.

In 1997, Emin’s installation Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995—a tent embroidered with the names of past lovers and companions—was displayed at Charles Saatchi’s Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. That same year, she gained widespread media attention after appearing intoxicated on the British television program The Death of Painting, where she repeatedly used profanity.

Her first solo exhibition in the United States took place in 1999 at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery, titled Every Part of Me’s Bleeding. Later that year, she was nominated for the Turner Prize and presented one of her most controversial pieces, My Bed. This installation featured her own unmade, disheveled bed, surrounded by objects reflecting a period of emotional distress—cigarette butts, empty bottles, used condoms, and blood-stained underwear—highlighting themes of vulnerability and personal turmoil.

Beyond her artwork, Emin is an active public speaker and panelist. She has lectured at esteemed institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, the Royal Academy of Arts, and Tate Britain. In December 2011, she was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy, making history alongside Fiona Rae as one of the first two female professors since the Academy’s founding in 1768.

Emin previously resided in Spitalfields, East London, before relocating to her hometown of Margate, where she established the TKE Studios, a creative space supporting emerging artists.

Roots and Early Life

Tracey Emin was born in Croydon, South London, to a mother of English and Romanichal heritage and a father of Turkish Cypriot descent. She spent her childhood in Margate, Kent, alongside her twin brother, Paul.

Her family background includes a notable connection to British politics—she shares a paternal great-grandfather with her second cousin, Meral Hussein-Ece, who later became Baroness Hussein-Ece.

Her work has been examined in relation to early childhood and adolescent abuse, including sexual assault. Emin was raped at 13 while living in Margate, describing the attacks in the area as something that happened to many girls. Later, in an article for the Evening Standard, she revealed that she had "no memory of being a virgin," referencing multiple instances of being raped during her early teenage years. 

She studied fashion at Medway College of Design (now part of the University for the Creative Arts) from 1980 to 1982. During her time there, she met Billy Childish, a student who was later expelled, and became associated with The Medway Poets. Emin and Childish were in a relationship until 1987, and during this time, she managed his small press, Hangman Books, which published his confessional poetry. Between 1983 and 1986, Emin studied printmaking at Maidstone Art College (now part of the University for the Creative Arts), graduating with a first-class degree in the subject. While at Maidstone, she also crossed paths with Roberto Navickas, whose name later appeared in her famous "tent" artwork. However, Emin accidentally misspelled his name by omitting a "C," which Navickas later used to promote two of his works, titled "The Lost C of Emin: The Discovery" and "The Lost C of Emin: A Reliquary."

In a 1995 interview for the Minky Manky show catalogue, Emin was asked by Carl Freedman about the person who had the greatest influence on her life. She responded, saying it wasn't a person but rather the time spent at Maidstone College of Art, her time with Billy Childish, and living by the River Medway.

In 1987, Emin moved to London to continue her studies at the Royal College of Art, where she earned an MA in painting in 1989. After finishing her degree, she experienced two traumatic abortions, which led her to destroy all the artwork she had created during her graduate studies, referring to the experience as "emotional suicide." Her influences during this time included Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele, and she also studied philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London.

One of the few paintings that survived from her time at the Royal College of Art is Friendship, which is now part of the Royal College of Art Collection. Additionally, a series of photographs from her early work that wasn’t destroyed were later displayed as part of her My Major Retrospective.

Early Career and Controversial Works

In 1993, Tracey Emin opened a shop called The Shop at 103 Bethnal Green Road in Bethnal Green, alongside fellow artist Sarah Lucas. The shop featured works by both artists, including items like T-shirts and ashtrays with images of Damien Hirst.

Later that year, Emin had her first solo exhibition at White Cube, a contemporary art gallery in London. The show, titled My Major Retrospective, was deeply personal and included photographs, images of her destroyed early paintings, and objects that were highly intimate, such as a packet of cigarettes her uncle had been holding when he was killed in a car accident.

During the mid-1990s, Emin entered a relationship with Carl Freedman, a former friend and collaborator of Damien Hirst, who had co-curated major Britart exhibitions such as Modern Medicine and Gambler. In 1994, the couple toured the United States together, driving from San Francisco to New York in a Cadillac. During the trip, Emin financed their journey by reading from her autobiographical book Exploration of the Soul.

Emin and Freedman spent time in Whitstable, where they used a beach hut that Emin later transformed into an art piece in 1999, titled The Last Thing I Said to You is Don’t Leave Me Here. This work was destroyed in the 2004 Momart warehouse fire. In 1995, Freedman curated the Minky Manky show at the South London Gallery, during which Emin was encouraged to create larger works. In response to his suggestion, she created the controversial piece Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995. This blue tent, embroidered with the names of everyone she had ever slept with, including sexual partners, relatives, her twin brother, and her aborted children, was first shown in this exhibition.

Emin’s use of needlework became a hallmark of her work, featured prominently in other pieces. The Everyone I Have Ever Slept With tent was later acquired by Charles Saatchi and included in the 1997 Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy. It then toured to Berlin and New York but was destroyed in the 2004 fire at Saatchi's warehouse in East London.

Public Recognition and Celebrity Support

Tracey Emin remained largely unknown until 1997, when she appeared on the Channel 4 television show Is Painting Dead? The live broadcast was a discussion about that year’s Turner Prize, and Emin, appearing intoxicated, slurred her words, swore, and eventually walked out. During the interview, she questioned whether people were truly watching the show: "Are they really real people in England watching this programme now, they really watching, really watching it?"

In 1999, Emin was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and exhibited her provocative work My Bed at the Tate Gallery. The installation, featuring an unmade bed with stained sheets, condoms, empty cigarette packets, and a pair of stained knickers, attracted widespread media attention. The piece was meant to represent her emotional state after a period of suicidal thoughts, following a turbulent relationship. Two performance artists, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, jumped onto the bed in an attempt to "improve" the piece, believing it lacked depth.

That same year, Emin explored the life of Princess Diana in a series of monoprints for Temple of Diana, a themed exhibition at The Blue Gallery in London. Some works depicted Diana’s struggles with bulimia, while others reflected on her humanitarian efforts, such as walking through a minefield in Angola. One poignant drawing depicted a rose with the words, “It makes perfect sense to know they killed you,” referencing conspiracy theories about her death. Emin described these drawings as sentimental, with no cynicism, and mentioned that it was challenging to create art about someone else, as she typically drew from her own experiences.

Emin’s work attracted the attention of numerous celebrities, including Elton John, George Michael, and his partner Kenny Goss, who hosted an exhibition titled A Tribute To Tracey Emin at their Dallas museum in 2007. Emin’s neon piece George Loves Kenny (2007) was a centerpiece of the show, inspired by her article in The Independent. The couple acquired 25 pieces of her work, adding to her growing fame.

Other prominent figures, including models Jerry Hall and Naomi Campbell, film star Orlando Bloom, and rock legend Ronnie Wood, have shown support for Emin’s art. Madonna, who invited Emin to her country estate, praised her for being "intelligent and wounded" and admired her provocative nature. David Bowie, a childhood inspiration for Emin, also became a close friend, even describing her as "William Blake as a woman, written by Mike Leigh."

Emin’s relationships with celebrities continued with a neon work created for her friend Kate Moss, titled Moss Kin. Unfortunately, the piece was mistakenly discarded in East London in 2004 after being left in a basement for several years. Emin’s art has also been featured in exhibitions such as Women Painting Women at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2022.

The Stuckism Movement and Emin's Involvement

The Stuckism movement, which emerged in 1999, was influenced by Tracey Emin’s relationship with artist and musician Billy Childish. In the early 1990s, Childish mocked Emin’s shift towards conceptualism in art. In response, Emin reportedly told him, "Your paintings are stuck, you are stuck! – Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!"—implying that he was clinging to outdated methods and not embracing the Young British Artists (YBA) movement. Childish later referenced this confrontation in the poem "Poem for a Pissed Off Wife," published in Big Hart and Balls Hangman Books in 1994. Charles Thomson, who was acquainted with both, coined the term "Stuckism" based on this incident.

Despite maintaining a friendly relationship with Childish until 1999, Emin grew increasingly disenchanted with the Stuckist group, especially as their activities began to target her. In a 2003 interview, Emin expressed her frustration with the movement, saying, "I don't like it at all… I don't really want to talk about it." She compared the group's behavior to stalking, noting that they had hounded her through the media after their past relationship. Emin described their actions as cruel and wished they would focus on their own lives instead of trying to interfere with hers.

In 2001, Childish left the Stuckist movement.

Tracey Emin at the 2007 Venice Biennale

In August 2006, the British Council announced that Tracey Emin had been selected to represent the UK at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. She became only the second woman to have a solo show at the British Pavilion, following Rachel Whiteread in 1997. Andrea Rose, the commissioner of the British Pavilion, noted that the exhibition would give Emin’s work the opportunity to be viewed “in an international context” and separate from the YBA (Young British Artists) movement that had brought her to fame.

Emin chose the title Borrowed Light for the exhibition and created new works specifically for the event, using an array of mediums, including needlework, photography, video, drawing, painting, sculpture, and neon. The exhibition included a previously unseen monoprint titled Fat Minge (1994), as well as a new purple neon piece, Legs I (2007), inspired by her earlier Purple Virgin (2004) watercolour series. Emin described the exhibition as “Pretty and hard-core.”

During an interview with BBC’s Kirsty Wark in November 2006, Emin revealed some of the works in progress for the Biennale, which included large canvases depicting her legs and vagina. These new works marked a significant evolution in her art, with themes of vulnerability and intimacy portrayed through bold imagery, such as her Purple Virgin series, Asleep Alone With Legs Open (2005), Reincarnation (2005), and Masturbating (2006).

Andrea Rose further commented on the maturity of Emin's work, describing it as “remarkably ladylike” and highlighting the absence of the provocative, crude imagery often associated with her earlier work. Rose praised Emin’s artistic growth, emphasizing how her focus had shifted toward more formal values and mature themes. Rose also noted that working with Emin had been a positive experience, describing her as "quite a lady" and stating that the exhibition demonstrated how far she had evolved from her YBA roots.

Royal Academician Status and Major Retrospectives

On March 29, 2007, Tracey Emin was appointed a Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts, joining a prestigious group of artists such as David Hockney, Peter Blake, Anthony Caro, and Alison Wilding. As a Royal Academician, Emin gained the right to exhibit up to six works at the Academy's annual summer exhibitions.

Emin had previously participated in several of the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibitions, showcasing works in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. Notably, in the 2004 Summer Exhibition, David Hockney selected two of her monoprints, And I'd Love To Be The One (1997) and Ripped Up (1995), while in 2007, she exhibited a neon piece titled Angel (2005). Emin had first shown her work at the Royal Academy in the landmark Sensation exhibition in 1997. In 2008, she was invited to curate a gallery for the Summer Exhibition and also gave a public talk about her role within the Royal Academy and her experience curating a gallery, alongside art critic Matthew Collings. In 2009, she displayed her Space Monkey – We Have Lift Off print at the Summer Exhibition.

In 2008, Emin held her first major retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, which drew over 40,000 visitors and broke the gallery's record for a living artist's exhibition. The show featured a comprehensive collection of her works, including iconic pieces like My Bed (1998) and Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made (1996), as well as a wide variety of her appliquéd blankets, paintings, sculptures, films, neons, drawings, and monoprints. The exhibition then toured to Spain and Switzerland in 2009. As a gesture of thanks to the gallery and the city of Edinburgh, Emin gifted a major sculpture, Roman Standard (2005), to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The bronze sculpture, standing 13 feet tall with a bird perched atop, is valued at £75,000.

In 2011, Emin held a major survey exhibition at London’s Hayward Gallery titled Love Is What You Want. The exhibition showcased a wide range of her work, including paintings, drawings, photography, textiles, video, and sculpture. It also featured new outdoor sculptures created specifically for the show, offering a fresh look at Emin’s evolving artistic practice.

The Vanishing Lake and Later Projects

On October 6, 2011, Tracey Emin presented a site-specific exhibition titled The Vanishing Lake in a Georgian house on Fitzroy Square. The title was inspired by her novel, which served as the foundation for a series of artworks created for the neoclassical house, designed by Robert Adam in 1794. The exhibition included a collection of embroidered texts and hand-woven tapestries, continuing Emin's exploration of domesticity and handcrafted traditions. Emin explained that the title reflected her sense of personal transformation, saying, "I called it that because I saw part of myself as drying and not there anymore, and I wanted to question the whole idea of love and passion, whether love exists anymore... Why? Because I'm nearly 50, I'm single, and I don't have children."

For the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Emin participated in the BA Great Britons Programme and produced a poster and limited edition print, one of only 12 British artists selected. On July 19, 2012, she also had the honor of carrying the Olympic torch through her hometown of Margate.

In December 2020, Emin held a joint exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts alongside Edvard Munch, titled The Loneliness of the Soul. Emin chose 19 works by Munch to be displayed alongside 25 of her own pieces. She also created a short Super-8 film as a tribute to Munch for her concurrent show at London's White Cube gallery. The exhibition later traveled to the newly opened Munch Museum in Oslo, where Emin became the first artist to exhibit alongside the legendary Norwegian painter. This exhibition, which featured new paintings and her iconic piece My Bed, traveled to the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2021. Critics praised the exhibition for its emotional depth, with Tim Adams of The Guardian describing it as a powerful expression of Emin's personal struggles and experiences.

Looking ahead, Emin's exhibition By The Time You See Me There Will Be Nothing Left is set to open in May 2024 at the Xavier Hufkens gallery in Brussels. This exhibition will include works produced after Emin's cancer diagnosis, such as You Keep Fucking Me, and she has expressed that it will be the best show she has ever done.