Artist Talk: Tracey Emin
Celebrate the opening of Tracey Emin: I Loved You Until The Morning, the artist’s first museum exhibition in North America. Tracey Emin talks with Martina Droth, Paul Mellon Director, YCBA, about her artistic career and her passion for painting.
About Tracey Emin
Born in London in 1963, Emin is a British artist known for her autobiographical artwork. Her paintings lay bare intimate and private experiences that veer from the prosaic to the most profound and life-affirming aspects of being a woman. Emin came to prominence in the 1990s as a multidisciplinary artist known for her sculptural installations and her use of unconventional materials such as textiles and neon. But Emin began as a painter and for the last two decades, painting has become her primary medium. I Loved You Until The Morning traces the evolution of her paintings over the last two decades, setting them alongside selected sculptures and drawings.
Emin was elected to the Royal Academy in 2007 and became its Eranda Professor of Drawing in 2011. In 2024 she was appointed Dame for her contributions to the visual arts.
In 2020, Emin founded TKE Studios in Margate, Kent, her former hometown. TKE Studios provides affordable studio space for professional artists and also hosts TEAR (Tracey Emin Artist Residency), a training program for emerging artists. Emin lives and works in London, Margate, and the South of France.
Top image
Tracey Emin in her Margate studio, 2024, photo by Harry Weller
