Tracey Emin: an Unfiltered Biography Through Art

illustration artwork of artist Tracey Amin

Raw, courageous, and unfiltered, Tracey Emin’s art explores a life marked by trauma, passion, and personal liberation. In 2025, Palazzo Strozzi in Florence will host a powerful retrospective, allowing visitors to experience the emotional depth of this groundbreaking British artist.

illustration artwork of artist Tracey Amin

13/12/2024

By Rebecca Ceccatelli. Cover image: Anano Esartia for I’M Firenze Digest.

The events of life reveal a profound and complex nakedness, reflected in trembling lines that are heavy with meaning. Rites of passage—like birth, digestion, and shedding skin— leave their marks on materials that now seem to carry the weight of personal experiences, almost like remnants of something one wishes to discard.
Tracey Emin does not shy away from using the term exorcism to describe her art, viewing it as an essential, utterly urgent medium where creativity and life intertwine and coexist, making it impossible to tell them apart. Consequently, when we observe her works, we cannot focus solely on their purely formal aspects; we inevitably find ourselves as voyeurs, eager to navigate the boundary where the individual ends and the artist begins.
Tracey Emin pours the full emotional and chronological weight of her life into the materials she touches, not limiting only herself to painting alone. She adapts her urgent needs to whatever medium is most suitable, spanning from installations and sculptures to patchworks and neon works. Her expression is unfiltered; what she experiences is what she shares, engaging in a confessional act unmediated by fear. This act reveals an absolute authenticity, leaving no room for mysteries or enigmas. Discussing Emin’s work means speaking of Tracey herself, as the two narratives enrich one another and become inseparable.
Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi has recently announced that it will soon open its doors to showcase the impactful biographical art of this British artist in 2025. Having exhibited in major art hubs worldwide, Tracey Emin is now set to bring her work to Florence. Today, we are here to talk about her. What better way to do so than through her creations?


Tracey Emin: an Unfiltered Biography Through Art


Tracey Emin’s Unfiltered Story: From Troubled Childhood to Artistic Liberation in CV: Cunt Vernacular

Talking about her life is not just a consequence; it is a fundamental need for the artist. This is evident in her consistent efforts to share her experiences, which go beyond egocentric narratives. Instead, they serve as a means of self-revelation, liberating her from the burdens and and conventions of a life often lived outside the norm. With the publication of Strangeland (2005)—her autobiographical book—she presented another instance of first-person storytelling about her life. One of the earliest times she addressed her experiences as significant enough to narrate was in CV: Cunt Vernacular. This work is in fact a hybrid of a typical CV and an art piece, featuring a narrative conveyed through her voice. It is complemented by video documentation of her living space, which is cluttered with signs of her life, including red heels and Vogue magazines.
In the work, Tracey Emin reflects on her life events from November 1962 to that point in her life. She grew up in a family of Turkish descent in Croydon, Britain, before moving to the pivotal city of Margate—a place she would come to both love and hate. Margate would later be celebrated as the best city to live in through the film Top Spot (2004). During her early years, she settled into a small seaside hotel run by her family. She stated, “I hated school with all my heart”, which led her to stop attending formal education at just 13. She began living her uniquely narrated life, describing it as “having wonderful free sex”.

With an initial dream of becoming a dancer—despite the fact that all dancers in Margate were men— she got closer to the dance floor by sleeping with many of them, even though she would soon be kicked out. She later attempted to explain herself in her piece Why I Never Became a Dancer (1995). However, her rapid development came with the weight of a traumatic event; she was raped at a very young age, which would forever influence her approach to sexuality. Although she acknowledges, “I know I’ll get in a hell of a lot of trouble for saying that”, she does not refer to this event as one of the worst and most traumatic experiences of her life. At this point, Tracey is a promiscuous teenager who doesn’t care that her poor spelling will always be a part of her writing or that she speaks with a heavy accent.
She moved to London and decided to further her education, first studying fashion at the Medway College of Design and later pursuing art at the Royal College of Art. During this time, she was swept up in the vibrant atmosphere of 1990s London, connecting with the group known as the Young British Artists; she fondly remembers this period as one marked by wild creativity and a spirit of enjoyment. “It seemed like Britain was ours”, she reflected in an interview. Each artist explored their own unique style and form of expression. Upon graduating, she remarked, “I leave college in love with Edvard Munch”, and thus began her career as emerging artist.

Tracey Emin’s Struggle with Motherhood, Loss, and the Fear of Dying Alone

In 1990 an event would completely dismantle all the stability that the artist had built around herself. After earning her Master’s degree, Tracey became pregnant and had an abortion; this occurred again two years later. This period was one of the most devastating in her life. She reflects, “Being a single mother on my own at that time in my life would have been a bloody disaster. However, the grief and loss she experienced twice led Tracey to completely reverse her life, defining this trauma as an emotional suicide. “Emotional suicide is killing yourself without dying, destroying each friendship and relationship one by one”, as she noted in her work, CV: Cunt Vernacular.

In a defining moment, she destroys nearly all the artwork she had created up to that point. Tracey smashes everything and throws it into rubbish bins to rid herself of it. “Because after being pregnant, I understood the true essence of creativity for myself. So then I couldn’t justify the art that I was making”. Suddenly, she perceived all her previous works only as objects cluttering the world. She felt compelled to make space for what truly deserved a place in it.
The artist’s relationship with the topic of motherhood took a complex turn as she reflected on her life. Despite never having anticipated becoming a mother, her journey has led her to confront the theme of death, particularly following her recent battle with cancer. This experience has heightened her fear of being alone. This fear seems to emerge as a consequence of her choice not to have children, even though she had the potential to do so. “The idea of dying alone, and no one holding your hand, and having no family around you, is like, pretty scary thought, and it’s something which frightens me”, she expresses. Following her abortions, Tracey Emin decided to abandon painting and art altogether.

Tracey Emin’s Addictions: Love, Alcohol and Lost Paintings

Tracey’s way of loving is intense and unwavering. She immerses herself deeply in her relationships, dedicating her entire being to the people she cares about. As the century drew to a close, Tracey developed another relationship – one with alcohol.
In a 2001 interview on the Ropes Broadcast on BBC Radio, the artist was asked, “In one of the films that you made for one of your exhibitions, you described yourself in the following way: I am an alcoholic, neurotic, psychotic, but I am an artist. Is that how you’d still describe yourself today?”. She responded, “Um, yeah, part of me would. I think because even if I’m not like that these days, and I haven’t been like that for a couple of years, part of me still is, and that part can still return, probably quite easily. But now the main thing that’s changed is I’ve stopped drinking spirits. I haven’t drunk spirits since 1999, which has altered my personality considerably.”

When she speaks about changes in her personality, it is inevitable to consider them as either a technique or a consequence of her state of being. However, painting often accompanies her transformation, resulting in notable works. These years have been filled with intense emotions, alongside a constant desire for sexuality that has sometimes preoccupied her, distracting her from doing anything. Often, while working in her studio, she would spend time and materials painting over her previous efforts until she finally achieved the satisfying result she was aiming for. Sometimes, she would overpaint her works; other times, she would even destroy or ruin some pieces before completing them.
“I thought I’d destroyed paintings because I was drunk. But now that I don’t drink alcohol three and a half years later I realise I destroy paintings because I’m slightly nutty and mad”, she joked in an interview with  Courtney Willis Blair in 2023 (Senior Director of the White Cube). Still, she emphasises that this is precisely how she continues to work even today. Rumour has it that some of her paintings have been exhibited twice in different locations, but nobody recognised them the second time because she had painted over them again, creating something entirely different.

Tracey Emin: My Bed, 1998. From Emerging to Affirmed Artist

In 1998, Tracey Emin made her mark with a unique approach to art, this time introducing a readymade infused with the deeply personal elements that characterise her work.
At the beginning of the 2000s, she shocked Britain—an audience easily rattled at the time—with the presentation of a personal habitat within an exhibitive space. Her piece, My Bed, was literally her own bed, placed on the gallery floor. The installation engages in a conversation with art history while serving as a stage for significant life events: birth, sleep, sex, and depression. Real objects accumulate on this bed, representing the items she left behind after spending time there on days when all she wanted was to remain there. Among these items are condoms, bottles of vodka and crumpled sheets—nothing more authentic than this.
This was one of the first times an artist defied convention to exhibit what most people would keep private. Many questioned why this could be regarded as art rather than just a rumpled bed. Tracey’s response was twofold: first, she assumed it was art (in a very modest manner); second, it explored themes all related to living—ranging from feelings of loneliness to wild sex. The installation provoked anger and sparked discussions over cups of tea, but the outcome was undeniable. The artist won the Turner Prize, solidifying her status as an established artist in every respect.

Tracey Emin’s Battle with Illness. Dealing with Death and Rising Spirituality

In recent years, the artist’s life took a sudden turn when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of bladder cancer in 2020. This forced her to a series of major surgeries, including a full hysterectomy, which now still requires her to use a urostomy bag.

Although the illness forced her to spend much of her time in bed, she documented her journey and continues to share her experiences on social media. She has consistently used her body as a battleground in her fight. Moreover, these years have been challenging not only due to her illness but also because the pandemic kept everyone at home. Various factors influenced her art, which began to shift towards bluish tones and depictions of domestic spaces, all referencing the absence of a hypothetical someone. Despite her condition, she continued to paint. Works like 5 Hours Long – With You in My Mind (2020) showcase this later period of her artistry, which embraced themes of deep loneliness and a certain spirituality concerning death.

We are honoured to host Tracey Emin in our city with an exhibition that will provide a comprehensive overview of her artistic journey as she continues to showcase her work around the world. We believe this article could serve as a fitting introduction to her artistic persona as we prepare for upcoming events. While one might jokingly refer to it as brief, how can we truly encapsulate a lifetime of art that is so profoundly tied to personal experiences in just a few words?

Fields of Study
Art

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