Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin

Tracey Karima Emin RA (born 3 July 1963 in Croydon) is an English artist. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs (Young British Artists).

In 1997 her work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, a tent appliquéd with names, was shown at Charles Saatchi's Sensation exhibition held at the Royal Academy in London. The same year, she gained considerable media exposure when she appeared drunk and swearing on a live Channel 4 TV discussion.

In 1999 she was a Turner Prize nominee and exhibited My Bed — an installation, consisting of her own unmade dirty bed with used condoms and blood-stained underwear.

In 2004 her tent artwork was destroyed in the Momart warehouse fire. In March 2007 Emin was chosen to join the Royal Academy of Arts in London as a Royal Academician. She represented Britain at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Her first major retrospective 20 Years was held in Edinburgh 2008, and toured Europe until 2009.

In May 2011 Emin's largest major solo exhibition in a public space was held at Hayward Gallery, London titled Love Is What You Want.

In April 2011 Tracey opened the Turner Contemporary art gallery in Margate with Jools Holland and between May and September 2012 she is holding her first exhibition there, entitled "She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea".

Emin is a panelist and speaker: she has lectured at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney (2010), the Royal Academy of Arts (2008), and the Tate Britain in London (2005) about the links between creativity and autobiography, and the role of subjectivity and personal histories in constructing art. Emin's art takes many different forms of expression including needlework and sculpture, drawing, video and installation, photography and painting.

In December 2011 she was appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy; along with Fiona Rae, she is one of the first two female professors since the Academy was founded in 1768.