Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin is a young British artist who has shocked the art world time and time again. Personally I think her work is simply brutally honest and many cannot deal with that. And why not? Humans don't tend to be the most truthful, forward or honest beings in my experience, it's a bit of a shock to the system.

I particularly like some of the works which she created in her performance piece "Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made" (1996) Emin locked herself in a room for a number of days and just painted, got all creative urges and emotions out of her system. The installation left behind included 14 paintings, 78 drawings, 5 body prints, various painted and personal items, furniture, CDs, newspapers, magazines, kitchen and food supplies. These works have nothing to do with technique, they're all about raw emotion and human longing.

I really like the fact that she has just allowed herself to flow into the artwork. She has physicalized her feelings. Through my text works (and all of my art I suppose) I hope to do exactly that; make my feelings, relationships and experiences a solid thing, make the intangible tangible. I think I would still have trouble making my private feelings so public with my named attached to it which I actually find kind of interesting. I mean I pride myself on being someone who really has no care in the world about what people think of what I do or who I am. I guess that's not the case.







I also like that she can go on British television drunk and take the piss out of the pretentious art world :) Oh Tracey, you're quite the character.



References

Emin, Tracey. 2009. One Thousand Drawings. New York: Rizzoli.

kamalika1234. 2008. "Tracey Emin on the loose" YouTube video, posted June 30. Accessed June 2, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKNr2LOkXYE&feature=channel_video_title

The Saatchi Gallery- London Contemporary Art Gallery. 2011. "Tracey Emin Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made- Contemporary" Accessed June 2, 2011. http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/tracey_emin_exorcism1.htm.