Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

How does Tracey Emin use her practice in order to understand and process her own life

experiences?

Tracey Emin is a British artist, well known for her confessional and shocking artwork. She is a

multi-disciplinary artist who produces work in a variety of mediums including printing,

drawing, painting, sculpture, textiles and neon text; however, she is best recognised for her

pieces such as “My Bed (1998)” and ‘Everyone I Have Ever Slept With (1995)” which are

reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp’s approach to producing art; which has been said to be “art

making through the process of selecting objects rather than making them.” (Important Art by

Tracey Emin, n.d.) Emin’s work is thought to be shocking due to her recurring theme of taboo

topics; Emin doesn’t shy away from speaking out about her sex life and desires, which is

forbidden in some cultures. There is a clear gender inequality when it comes to how men’s

sexual desires are received when spoken about, compared to women. It is more common than

not that verbal abuse is hurled at women when speaking about their sexuality and sexual

desires, whereas men are often praised for it, and I believe that Emin is trying to produce

work with female representation through use of her practice. Emin’s work has resonated with

me ever since I can remember though it is only in recent years that I have started to grasp the

underlying concepts behind her pieces.

I first came across Emin’s work when I was preparing for my GCSE exam in Fine Art, in

which I was exploring the female form and the variety of ways that it can be portrayed within

the art world. As a 16-year-old, I was primarily interested in the aesthetic of the art more than

the concept behind it, therefore I chose to study Emin because her work looked “cool”, and it

was unique in the sense that it wasn’t a hyper-realistic representation of the female form,

rather a more fragmented representation. It was raw and honest, and looking back on it, I
Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

was naïve to the meaning of the work as I hadn’t developed an interest in the concepts of Fine

Art yet.

The main works that I had chosen to study were “Sad Shower in New York (1995)”,

“Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made (detail) (1996)”, “Birds (2012)”, and “Terribly

Wrong (1997)”. It wasn’t until I was doing my A Levels that I realised the importance of the

concept and meaning behind a body of work, and this is when Tracey Emins work became

profound to me, and I started to resonate with it on a deeper level than finding it aesthetically

pleasing. I believe that Emins work has helped me to develop into the artist that I am today,

the confessional quality to her work has influenced my own personal practice and I believe

that this understanding is why I use art as a release a lot of the time, whether it be positive or

negative.

Tracey Emin and her work provide me with a lot of inspiration when it comes to creating my

own as Emin has always made work that she feels she needs or wants to make and it’s never

to please anyone else. Her work is unconventional; it strays from the classics such as

Leonardo Da Vinci and Vincent Van Gogh. Emin is multi-disciplinary, and I think that this

is what interests me most about her; the way in which she has worked with several different

practices throughout her artistic career and has always found some success within each

medium.

Because of this relatively new understanding of Emin’s work, I find myself using her pieces to

contextualise my work often, and one of the major works that I have been influenced by

recently was her work titled “My Bed (1998)”. I feel that this piece is a very real and raw

reflection of Emin, who, at the time, was in the midst of a personal relationship breakdown

and was suffering from a depressive episode as a result. In her recovery, Emin recognised her

bed as an artistic expression, thus opening her private life up to the public when she released

it. Although likeminded artists may have been able to understand the concept, this piece was
Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

not so tasteful to others, and it received a lot of backlash and criticism within the media; with

some people “…stating that anybody could display a messy bed.” (Takac, 2019) The reason

being was that contemporary art was still a relatively new concept and people weren’t ready

to accept it and ultimately viewed it as a dismissal of the classics’ way of working. However,

some art critics have said that it helped to “cinch Emin’s notoriety as one of the YBAs”

(Begley, 2014). The YBAs (Young British Artists) is “applied to a loose group of British

artists…who became known for their openness…shock tactics…” (Young British Artists (YBAs),

n.d.). This association is an integral part of the contemporary art motion and well-known

artists such as Damien Hirst, Cornelia Parker, and Sarah Lucas work with the same focus as

Emin, to keep pushing societies boundaries and provide viewers with art works that are

created with a multi-modal approach to practice.

“My Bed (1998)” went on to be shortlisted for the Turner Prize and was then exhibited at

The Tate in 1999. In addition, in 2014, Emin’s piece was “sold for approximately $3.77

million,” (Begley, 2014). Therefore, despite the criticism that she received, Emin’s success

within the art world was only elevated through the releasing of this piece.

Tracey Emin

“My Bed”

1998.
Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

As Emin has developed as an artist over the years, it is clear to see that she has adopted a

softer approach to her life experiences within her work and her working methods. Her bodies

of work from the 1990’s have a heightened and prominent sense of sadness and pain, whereas

her more recent works from the 2000’s to present day, appear to have a softer approach when

it comes to tackling and processing her depression and painful life experiences. This is

reflected in the colour palettes and working methods of comparative pieces; her recent work

appears to be more considered. For example, Emin had an abortion in 1994 which is what

her piece “Terribly Wrong (1997)” was created as a result of. This piece is a monoprint,

which is a quick and one-off method of working. They are cathartic in the sense that you can

produce them quickly and release tension through creating them, this is “perfectly suited to

(apparently) immediate expression” (Terribly Wrong, n.d.). It has been said that “the text

appears as the artists stream of consciousness voice” (Terribly Wrong, n.d.) and this is something

that I agree with; because when creating monoprints, you need to consider the way in which

the writing will be viewed, as any text that is written will be viewed backwards, which you can

see in the image below. This suggests to me that Emin simply wanted to get the words down

in a somewhat frantic manner.

Tracey Emin

“Terribly Wrong”

1997.
Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

Whereas on the other hand, Emin’s paintings “There Was A Moment (2019)” and “I said I

would say goodbye (2019)” have a more visually settled and considered composition in

comparison, despite the continued use of her traditional expressive drawing style. The catalyst

behind the release and the exhibition, “Detail of Love” containing this piece was the Cancer

diagnosis that Emin received in 2020. These works are comprised of softer colour palettes,

wispy figures created from brushstrokes and they have an overall gentler atmosphere to them,

though this doesn’t mean to say that they hold any less emotion and aren’t as confessional as

her work from previous years; I would go as far to say that they hold the same, if not more

emotion than previous works but this may be due to the fact that they are more universally

recognised as ‘conventional artworks’ and are easier to understand. It is said that Emin is

“…still embracing raw feeling and the female body, but in a way that is less

confrontational and more open to interpretation.” (Brown, 2020)

I believe that Emin isn’t as angry at the world as she used to be, and this is the reasoning for

the change to the process and production of her work. The pink and blue hues within “There

Was A Moment (2019)” promote a sense of tranquillity and peace; the dripping of the red,

white, and black paint from the figures suggest that they are melting into each other; I believe

that there is a certain danger to love as it is a complicated, multi-faceted experience, one in

which is it certainly possible to lose yourself. This coincides with when Emin said, “Nowadays

if I make a drawing, I’m trying to draw love, but love isn’t always gentle.” (Morgan, 1997)

about her more recent works, including these paintings. This demonstrates to me that Emin is

aware of this, not only in everyday life but is also aware of her portrayal of the different sides

of love within her work.

Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

Tracey Emin “There Was A Moment” 2019.

Another piece of recent work by Emin that shows she has adopted a visually softer approach

is “I said I would say goodbye (2019)”; though this piece appears to depict a more emotive

scene where two people are stood opposite each other, surrounded by darkness from their

shoulders upwards. It is said that Emins recent works

“explore the turbulent and often ambiguous emotions associated with sex and desire. Rather

than creating a depiction of precise events, Emin captures the emotions as they awaken.”

(Eyck, 2020)

; suggesting that Emin has strayed away from painting eventual imagery and is heightening

the emotional drive behind the work and impact that this has on the viewer. This piece has an

overwhelming sense of loss and sadness to it, depicting an elephant-in-the-room atmosphere

Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

since the figure on the right is facing down, avoiding eye contact with the figure on the left; it

suggests that there is something that is being ignored or left unsaid. Additionally, the contact

between the two figures towards the lower half of their bodies promote the idea of holding on

and not wanting to break contact. This concept is strengthened by the title of the piece: ‘I said

I would say goodbye’. It proposes the notion that one of these figures is going to leave, but

they can’t until they’ve said goodbye, toying in with the idea that they don’t want to break

contact, as aforementioned, because then they would have to leave. Furthermore, the drips of

the black acrylic give the impression of rain, which could be said to be pathetic fallacy,

prompting the viewer to feel anticipation of something negative. All of these inferences,

strengthen Eyck’s statement and convey to us that an important drive behind Emins work is

largely to do with portraying an experience and the emotions that came from it.

Tracey Emin

“I said I would say goodbye”

2019.
Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

In conclusion, it is clear to see that Emin uses her practice in a cathartic way, at first to

display and share her life experiences, but now more so to express her emotions and to give

them physicality. This has allowed Emin to develop a more carefully considered approach to

presenting her life experiences to the public, rather than “the adolescent desire to shock and

get up people’s noses. What is left is spare, elemental, and profoundly, painfully human.”

(Hubbard, 2020) As previously mentioned, I believe Emin isn’t as angry at the world as she

used to be, she is no longer seeking some sort of validation, it is transparent to me that Emin

has always wanted her experiences and emotions to be validated; using her practice she was

able to do so herself, thus her working practice changed to a softer, more emotionally

expressive style. This ultimately reinforces the idea that Emin uses her practice cathartically.

Due to the ever-changing nature of her work and practice, I am eager to see the type of work

Emin produces, if any, in the coming years, and I am certain that she will remain as the

strongest of my conceptual influences within the art world.

Word count: 2002

Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

Bibliography

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https://time.com/2933839/tracey-emin-my-bed-auctioned/ [Accessed: 21 April 2022]

Brown, K (2020) [Online] Available at: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tracey-emin-

interview-1918561 [Accessed: 21 April 2022]

Eyck, V (2020) Tracey Emin, Detail of Love [Online] Available at:

https://www.xavierhufkens.com/exhibitions/detail-of-love [Accessed: 13 May 2022]

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Morgan, S (1997) The Story of I: Interview with Tracey Emin [Online. Frieze, issue 34, lines 97-98]

Available at: https://www.frieze.com/article/story-i [Accessed 22 April 2022]

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Tracey Emin (n.d.) [Online] Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/emin-tracey/

[Accessed: 21 April 2022]

Daniella Read ART417 Emma Bush

Young British Artists (YBAs) (n.d) [Online] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-

terms/y/young-british-artists-ybas [Accessed: 21 April 2022]

Hubbard, S (2020) Review| The Loneliness of the Soul at The Royal Academy of Arts [Online]

Available at: https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/review-the-loneliness-of-the-soul-at-the-

royal-academy-of-arts/ [Accessed: 13 May 2022]