”There was a period in my life where the outside axis pulled me too strongly. I was getting mixed up with things, seeing too much, the world, everything, traveling too much, wanting too much, being too greedy, not understanding what I had right within me. And I think as an artist that’s the most important thing. It´s what I say to lots of young artists: look at what you’ve got inside and work outwards. Don’t keep trying to get this and trying to get that.”

”I have to carry on making the work that I’m making. Because when I made My Bed, for example, people laughed at it. People thought it wasn’t art. Now it’s considered a seminal piece of art that has changed art history. When I made my tent, it was the same. When I made the abortion works 30 years ago, well before many other people. Now, if I go and show that same work in certain states in America, my life would be in danger.”

“I’m doing what I think is right and what I think needs to be said. For me, firstly. And then for others. I don’t usually do it the other way around. I don’t speak for other people. Because if I did speak for the other people, I wouldn’t be an artist. I’d be a campaigner. I’d be an activist. I’d be a politician. I would be something like that. And we’ve already realized what I’m really good at is art.”

Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963 and grew up in Margate. She studied at Maidstone College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. Emin works in a variety of media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, film, installation, embroidery, neon, and text. She uses her personal experiences to make highly confessional works in which she exposes herself, her hopes, humiliations, failures, and successes in a very direct manner. Emin deals relentlessly with the minutiae of her life and with the common subjects of sexuality, mortality, and what it means to be an artist.

Emin came to prominence as one of the loose grouping of contemporary artists popularly referred to as YBAs (Young British Artists). This group of artists, also including Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, and Angus Fairhurst, often exhibited together and collaborated. Among her early works were seminal installations such as Everyone I Have Slept With 1963-1995 and My Bed, as well as early performances and videos, including Why I Never Became a Dancer.

In 1999, Emin was nominated for the Turner Prize. In 2007, she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale and was elected a Royal Academician in the same year. In 2011, Emin became the Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. In June 2024, King Charles III appointed her Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her contributions to the visual arts. Four years earlier, in 2020, she was diagnosed with bladder cancer and underwent extensive surgery. She currently lives and works between London, the South of France, and Margate, UK.

Emin has exhibited extensively including major solo shows. In 2026, Tate Modern presented the landmark exhibition A Second Life, traveling onwards to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; HoAm Art Museum, Yongin, South Korea; and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, in 2026-2027. Previous exhibitions include Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut (2025); Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (2025); Munchmuseet, Oslo (2021); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2020); Musée d’Orsay, Paris (2019); Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France (2017); Leopold Museum, Vienna (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida (2013); Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2012); Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2012); Hayward Gallery, London (2011); Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2009); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2008); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga, Spain (2008); Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2003); and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2002). Her works are part of major museum collections, including MoMA in New York and Tate Modern in London, among others.

Tracey Emin was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in her home in London, UK, in July 2026.

Camera: Simon Weyhe
Edited by: Roxanne Bagheshirn Lærkesen
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026

Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond.