Tracey Emin:
Makes a statement with her work, bold and often offending men due to almost feminist remarks, and sexualised pieces. She also used to create work by drinking before she draws and waking up surrounded by her own artwork, however this was a problem and she knew it. She even tackles Racism (“the quilt”) and other realistic issues in her work, not even hidden because she wants to create a backlash she wants to be different. Also she is very relatable, her work showing us things from everyday life that we all know and do, for example “Anyone I have ever slept with” apparently was a painful piece for her to create. She’s also had a strange life, made bad choices, this reflects in her work as she’s taken it in a personal direction…life experiences.
She gave me a good idea to also be inspired by my personal choices and my life experiences as often those ideas come to you before any others do, which I will definitely use in the future.
The tent is one of her most loved/hated pieces of work, named “Anyone I have ever slept with”. When describing this she said it had been a painful piece of work to create due to all the backlash, yet loving the limelight and being different. Tackling real issues that people in everyday life of course want to know who has slept with who, daily gossip that everyone gets intrigued by. However by most of her work being sexualised men often find her work disturbing and get disgusted by it, but men are allowed to paint women naked and have been doing for thousands of years…yet when a woman sexualises women, it is immediately wrong?!
Her realistic neon signs often spark controversy and you can see why…
Although some of these signs are vulgar and offensive to some people, to me they just state the truth. The last image above is her piece of work Tracey has created sexualising women and inspired by the neon lights/signs prostitute houses use, however instead of a normal sign “massage parlour” for example she has gone straight to the point and being very realistic using the image of a women’s genitals in a sexual manor. It almost seemed that Tracey Emin enjoyed the shock factor that her work gave towards us, almost like she thrived off it.
I like some of her previous work, this neon sign…
It jumps out at me. She has been loved, she loved, once. Love is a big statement and here she’s made one, a neon sign declaring her love to someone, “I promise to love you” isn’t that what everyone wants to hear?! The neon sign shows its a big commitment, and the loving pink neon writing also shows the love and the boldness of her statement.
Im glad we had a lecture on the artist Tracey Emin, she has really opened my eyes to a whole new world of using real life experiences. Before I didn’t know much of her work, I am now hunting to find an exhibition to see her work in real life to inspire me even more.