Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963 to an unstable family where the father was married to another woman and split his time between the two families. Tracey family had it hard finically but in 1986 Tracy went to the Maidstone College of art and got a bachelor of fine art. Tracy still lives and works in London today.
After college Tracey and her friend ran a shop selling their work like T-shirts and ash trays and Tracey ask customers to invest so money into her as an artist. Then she finally got her own solo show where she showed work that most people would keep secret or find to personal to share with the world. She exploited her own life by putting this information on display made her famous inside the art world because this had really never be done before and because people were curious about her work. An example of Tracey using personal matter for her art is when she took a pack of cigarettes that her dead uncle was holding when he was decapitated in a car wreck and put that pack of cigarettes on display. At Tracey’s first show she had on display a piece called “Everyone I Ever Slept With” right off the back you think the title means everyone she every had sex with but when you start reading the names and have a little background information on her you can tell it is more on an intimate level because her twin brother is on that list and her two twin babies that she had an abortion with were on the list. The names were inside the walls of a blue tent.
Tracey’s work made her famous in the artist circle but she really was not known to the public until the day she went on the channel 4 TV show and made a complete ass of herself. She was messed up on pain killers for a broken finger but who knows. She basically walk off stage before her time was up saying things like “I want my Mum.” Two years after her TV interview she made a piece called “my bed” in which she used a real bed and actual house hold items to make to set. The bed was unmade with yellow stains on it and on the floor next to the bed was trash cigarettes, condom rappers, slippers, alcohol and more crap.
Ms. Emin did all kinds of art work from monoprints to paintings, photography, neon, fabric, found objects, installations, films, books and sculptures. One of her most famous and massed produced works is a self portrait of herself sitting naked on the floor of her beach hut and the title of this piece is “The Last Thing I Said to You Was Don’t Leave Me Here” I like this picture because of the simplistic feel to it. She is naked in a Conner with her back to the camera, sitting on a old worn down wooden floor with old worn down wood walls. Her hair is braided in pigtails like a young girl and she just looks all alone and sad.
Tracys also did a lot of work around found objects like the cigarettes she found in the car crash of her uncle and the her bed that she put on display. Emin also used the rocks and stones that were thrown threw her window from some of the outraged public that thought her work was disgusting. She took the rocks and stones and used them in one of her pieces.
Tracy Emin’s art work is weird strange and really far out there I think this is why I like her artwork. Everything she does make you think why? Why did she do that or why would she want to show that and not hide it? She has enough courage to express her crazy art work off and that might be why I respect her the most.
