Tracey Emin

About Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin's art is one of disclosure, using her life events as inspiration for works ranging from painting, drawing, video and installation, to photography, needlework and sculpture. Emin reveals her hopes, humiliations, failures and successes in candid and, at times, excoriating work that is frequently both tragic and humorous.

Emin’s work has an immediacy and often sexually provocative attitude that firmly locates her oeuvre within the tradition of feminist discourse. By re-appropriating conventional handicraft techniques or ‘women’s work for radical intentions’, Emin’s work resonates with the feminist tenets of the ‘personal as political’. In Everyone I’ve Ever Slept With, Emin used the process of appliqué to inscribe the names of lovers, friends and family within a small tent, which the viewer had to crawl inside, becoming both voyeur and confidante. Her interest in the work of Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele particularly informs Emin’s paintings, monoprints and drawings, which explore complex personal states and ideas of self-representation through manifestly expressionist styles and themes.

Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963 and lives and works in London. She has exhibited internationally including solo and group exhibitions in Holland, Germany, Japan, Australia and America. In 1999, she was short listed for the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery, London. She has had solo shows at the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Haus der Kunst (Munich) and Modern Art Oxford in 2002, Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia) in 2003 and Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center (Istanbul) in 2004. In 2007, Tracey represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. ‘Twenty Years’, her next major survey exhibition, will take place during the Edinburgh Festival at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in August 2008.

Deckchair Design

Tracey donated a deckchair design to Deckchair Dreams in 2008. Visit our online shop to buy a limited edition deckchair and help support the Royal Parks.