Tracey Emin

Tracey Karima Emin was born on July 3, 1963, in Croydon, England, and grew up in the coastal town of Margate, Kent. One of the most influential and provocative figures in contemporary British art, she is known for an intensely autobiographical practice that has challenged conventions of artistic expression and personal disclosure. Drawing on her relationships, vulnerabilities, traumas, and emotional experiences, Emin creates work that refuses to separate the personal from the public. Emin studied Fashion at Medway College of Design from 1980 to 1982 and Printmaking at Maidstone College of Art from 1983 to 1986. She subsequently completed an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London in 1989 and later studied Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. Emerging during the 1990s as a prominent figure associated with the Young British Artists (YBAs), Emin gained international attention through works that exposed intimate experiences and emotional turmoil. Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (1995), a tent appliquéd with the names of people with whom she had shared a bed—both sexually and non-sexually—became emblematic of her candid and confessional approach. Her installation My Bed (1998), consisting of her unmade bed surrounded by personal belongings and debris, was presented as part of her nomination for the 1999 Turner Prize and remains one of her most widely discussed works. Emin works across a broad range of media, including drawing, painting, neon, sculpture, photography, film, and sewn appliqué. Her art frequently explores sexuality, identity, loss, love, illness, and the transformation of trauma into resilience, inviting viewers into a space in which vulnerability becomes a form of visual and emotional expression. She has exhibited extensively at museums and galleries around the world. Her major solo exhibitions include Love Is What You Want at the Hayward Gallery in London. In 2007, Emin represented Great Britain at the 52nd Venice Biennale and was elected a Royal Academician. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2013 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2024 King’s Birthday Honours for services to art. Throughout her career, Emin’s work has remained deeply rooted in lived experience, using confession, memory, and emotional truth as artistic strategies. She currently lives and works between London, Margate, and the south of France, continuing to explore the intersections of personal narrative, bodily experience, and broader cultural discourse.