Emin’s art takes many different forms of expression including painting, drawing, video and installation, to photography, needlework and sculpture. As well as using new forms of art, like neon tube lighting, she uses old art in new ways. An appliqué piece attacks Margaret Thatcher’s decision to go to war in The Falklands. One message on the blanket reads: “How did you get away with it, I have always said you should be tried for crimes against humanity … 1982, a year so many conscripts did not go home - because you, you killed them all.”
The ways in which Tracey Emin’s life experience reflects social experience is clearly seen in Everyone I have ever slept with from 1963 - 1995. The inside walls of a small tent were covered with cut-out letters spelling the names of all those who shared Tracey’s bed during that time period. These included early boyfriends and girlfriends, family members, her twin brother and subsequent lovers. Not to forget her own name: With myself always myself never forgetting. Intimate scenes were recalled, scenes of a kind almost everyone has experienced or will experience in a tent. The tent was also associated with prenatal security, the joys of teenage holidays and a nomadic restlessness and despairing drive.
Written words appear frequently in Emin’s art: sentimental embroideries, ‘handwritten’ neon tubes, notes on walls, drawings and paintings, even entire books. In Exploration of the soul 1994 Emin recorded her chequered life story from her conception to her loss of virginity in a piece which hovers between a frank confession and an aesthetic arrangement.
In 1995, Tracey Emin established the Tracey Emin Museum in London. In the private atomosphere of a rented flat on Waterloo Road she presented a great variety of works in surroundings combining gallery and personal apartment with a souvenir/clothing store, presenting an alternative to familiar modes of art presentation.
Tracey Emin’s art is a powerful form of communication that transcends rules to address the viewer dynamically and directly through personal confession.
by Raimar Stange for ‘Women Artists in the 20th and 21st century’
“For me, being an artist isn’t just bout making nice things or people patting you on your back; it’s some kind of communication, a message.”
My favourite artist
(via missgoodall)
