In 1984, she was accepted to Maidstone College of Art (later was the part of the Kent Institute of Art & Design) and earned her Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 1986.
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Kensington Gore, Kensington, London SW7 2EU, United Kingdom
In 1987, Tracey enrolled at the Royal College of Art, graduating with Master of Arts degree in 1989.
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Malet St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom
Tracey studied philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London.
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Maidstone, Kent, United Kingdom
In 1980, Emin entered Medway College of Design (present-day the University for the Creative Arts) to study fashion and remained there until 1982.
Career
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Queen Elizabeth II meets British artist Tracey Emin in front of JMW Turner's "Crossing the Brook" while visiting the Turner Contemporary Gallery, on November 11, 2011 in Margate, southeast England.
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Gallery of Tracey Emin
Achievements
Membership
Royal Academy of Arts
2007
Burlington House, Piccadilly, Mayfair, London W1J 0BD, United Kingdom
In 1984, she was accepted to Maidstone College of Art (later was the part of the Kent Institute of Art & Design) and earned her Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 1986.
Queen Elizabeth II meets British artist Tracey Emin in front of JMW Turner's "Crossing the Brook" while visiting the Turner Contemporary Gallery, on November 11, 2011 in Margate, southeast England.
("I Followed You to the Sun" features a very personal coll...)
"I Followed You to the Sun" features a very personal collection of works titled the Lonely Chair drawings, which are published here for the first time. In this series of self-portraits, Emin depicts a solitary female in her signature gestural style. The images are drawn from photographs, that Emin took of herself and convey poignant emotions of longing and sadness. Emin’s musings on love and loneliness are interspersed throughout the book and further illustrate the subconscious nature of the drawings.
Tracey Emin is a British artist, who represents Conceptual Art movement. She works with a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, drawing, film, photography, neon text and sewn appliqué. Emin is best known for her deeply personal and confessional artwork, revealing intimate details of her life with brutal honesty and poetic humor.
Background
Ethnicity:
Her mother descended from Romanichal ancestry and her father's Turkish Cypriot.
Tracey Emin was born on July 3, 1963 in Croydon, London, United Kingdom. She has twin brother, whose name is Paul.
In her early years, Tracey lived with her mother in a successful seaside hotel in Margate, where she claims she was treated "like a princess". Her father lived with them for half of the week, spending the other half with his legitimate wife and other children. After a few years, Emin's father left and took his money with him, leaving her mother bankrupt. The family was then forced to live in poverty.
Education
Tracey left school for good at the age of thirteen in order to "learn from life", throwing herself into countless affairs. In 1980, Emin entered Medway College of Design (present-day the University for the Creative Arts) to study fashion and remained there until 1982.
Some time later, in 1984, she was accepted to Maidstone College of Art (later was the part of the Kent Institute of Art & Design) and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1986. The following year, in 1987, Tracey enrolled at the Royal College of Art, graduating with Master of Arts degree in 1989. Later, she also studied philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London.
Moreover, in 2007, the artist received an Honorary Doctorate degree from the Royal College of Art.
Tracey began her career while still a college student, working as an administrator for her ex-boyfriend's, Billy Childish, small press — Hangman Books — which published Childish's confessional poetry. In 1987, Emin left for London, where she befriended many artists, who would later be called the Young British Artists, which included Sarah Lucas and Damien Hirst. The following year, in 1988, the group of artists began exhibiting their works together, although Emin did not join ranks with them artistically until the early 1990's.
In 1993, Tracey, together with Sarah Lucas, opened a store, entitled "The Shop", in the East End of London, where they sold their own handmade items. Also, in 1993-1994, one of Emin’s earliest exhibitions took place at the influential White Cube gallery on Duke Street. That show, ironically titled "My Major Retrospective", gave a hint of things to come. It displayed personally significant artifacts from Emin’s life, such as a hospital bracelet and personal correspondence, in addition to a quilt, on which she had stitched the names of family members and notes to them.
In 1994, Emin undertook a United States tour of performance art, for which, sitting in her grandmother’s chair, she read from "Exploration of the Soul", a handwritten autobiographical book, chiefly about her childhood. The book was subsequently published in 2003.
In 1995, Tracey produced her well-known work, entitled "Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995", for a show, called "Minky Manky". This was a tent, embroidered with the names of everyone with whom she had shared a bed.
It was in 1997, that Tracey first came to the attention of the wider British public, appearing on a television show about the Turner Prize. She was drunk and belligerent, swearing on live television among a panel of academics. In 1999, two years after her drunken television appearance, Emin became a finalist for the Turner Prize with the installation "My Bed" (1998), which displayed not only the artist’s actual bed, but also rumpled bedclothes and what one critic called "uncomfortably personal debris", including soiled underwear, empty liquor bottles and used condoms. Only one British artist of the four nominated could win the prize, and Emin lost the Prize that year to Steve McQueen.
Throughout the following decade, Emin explored a variety of media. She represented Great Britain in 2007 at the Venice Biennale with the show "Borrowed Light", which included some neon pieces and embroidery, as well as a series of watercolours and sculptures. The same year, Tracey was made a Royal Academician at London's Royal Academy of the Arts, marking her ascent into the upper echelons of British art society and her acceptance by the establishment.
During her lifetime, Emin was also active in music. For example, in 1998, she duetted with pop singer Boy George on a song, called "Burning Up", released on an 18 track audio CD, that accompanied the book "We love you". In 2009, Emin designed the album artwork for a release by singer/songwriter Harper Simon, son of Paul Simon. The front cover depicts an aeroplane, drawn in Emin's scratchy monoprint style.
In December 2011, Emin was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Arts.
These days, Tracey continues to be active in her art practice, and the basis of her work remains tied to physical identity through corporeal and spiritual anguish. She is an active participant in her artwork, and through this, she lends an openness and vulnerability to her audience through universal emotion.
The Last Thing I Said to You was Don't Leave Me Here II
Politics
Emin is a Royalist.
Also, in August 2014, she was one of 200 public figures, who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian, expressing their hope, that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.
Views
Quotations:
"I think a lot of the people who have an understanding of my work have an understanding of guttural emotional experiences and cathartic moments within their own life, and so they identify it within my work."
"Modern Art is merely the means by which we terrorize ourselves."
"Women go on getting better. It's like a light bulb, women burn and burn and burn, with men it's just one big flash."
"What is truth? Truth doesn't really exist. Who is going to judge whether my experience of an incident is more valid than yours? No one can be trusted to be the judge of that."
"A man doesn't know what it's like to be a woman; it's that simple."
"I've been making bronze sculptures for a long time. My sculptures are wholly unsuccessful and uncommercial. No one is even the remotest bit interested in them. So it's almost like my hobby."
"I realized I was my work, I was the essence of my work — I always say that after I'm dead my work isn't going to be half as good."
Membership
Emin is a member of the Young British Artists group.
Royal Academy of Arts
,
United Kingdom
2007
Personality
In 2015, Emin took the unusual decision to "get married" to a rock in her garden in France. She later stated, that "somewhere on a hill facing the sea, there is a very beautiful ancient stone, and it's not going anywhere", describing her rock-husband as "an anchor, something I can identify with". Tracey symbolically chose to wear her father's funeral shroud for the short and unconventional ceremony. This is to be understood as a universal expression of love, and an expression of the soul or the invisible self. Emin has announced numerous times, that she no longer has sex and is not invested in physical conquest, but rather, seeks to focus on love and her work.
Quotes from others about the person
Madonna described Emin as "intelligent and wounded and not afraid to expose herself".
Connections
During her lifetime, Tracey had many relationships and affairs. Billy Childish, a painter and author, Mat Collishaw, an artist, Carl Freedman, a founder of Carl Freedman Gallery, were among her boyfriends.
Tracey Emin: Works 2007-2017
Compiled in close collaboration with the artist and unprecedented in its scope, this definitive book collects ten years of Tracey Emin’s drawings, paintings, sculptures, appliqués and embroideries, neons, video stills and installations.
2017
Tate Modern Artists: Tracey Emin
This book presents Emin's art in clear, accessible language, with full-color reproductions throughout. It provides a highly informed key to understanding one of the most hotly discussed artists at work today, responsible for some of the most iconic works of recent times.
2006
Tracey Emin: My Photo Album
"My Photo Album" is a journey through the life of British artist Tracey Emin, using photographs from her personal collection.