Tracey Emin
This week, I went to see Tracey Emin’s latest exhibition, ‘a second life’ at Tate Modern. I remember learning about Tracey's work in 2008 when I was 16, doing Art A-Level at the BRIT school. The school took us to see her most groundbreaking work, 'My Bed', which was showing at Tate Britain. It was busy and there were kids from other schools trying to reach in and touch the display. Needless to say, I was distracted, and I didn't understand back then what she was trying to say. Too young, too naive. I even remember being at the gallery hearing my stomach rumbling and my skin feeling more cold than usual; the start of anorexia.
But standing there in the gallery as a 33 year old woman, I almost wanted to look away. Not because they weren't brilliant, but because they were painfully true. I left the exhibition, walked through the overpriced gift shop, (I was tempted to buy a Tracey Emin tea towel lol), sat in the toilets and cried. Not even really understanding why. Have you ever cried without thinking? When your body just reacts even without any thoughts bubbling around in your head?
When I think about the imagery in her paintings, it's like she knows. She's been able to visualize the pain of the female experience. The pain of having a body used for sex, of punishing it, of carrying shame and guilt and rage and grief and love. Her themes were rape, sex, abortion, cancer…mine are exploitation, affairs, divorce, and eating disorders. Different, but the same. It turns out that no matter what’s happened in someone’s life, whatever your ‘theme’ is, the pain is understood by millions of people. That’s why Tracey’s work is incredible. She is able to find colour and shape and texture to describe something that I've carried for years. It's like someone holding up a mirror to all the parts that you know are there, that you try to pretend aren't there, because you worry people will abandon you if you tell them. Tracy doesn't just tell her story. She quite literally fills a room full of it. And the amazing part is that people don’t abandon her; they actually travel across the world to soak it all up.
That’s what a good artist does. They create something that comes from inside, and give it form on the outside. They don’t become great by going to the best art school, practicing how to use a paintbrush for 8 hours a day, studying the works of Picasso and Van Gogh (although I’m sure they are all very good steps) - but it comes deep from within their own life. There is no school anywhere that can teach someone how to do that. The same goes for musicians. We are artists trying to say something through sound and time. Tracey has oil and canvas, we have scores and instruments. Different, but the same. The question is, can we be as vulnerable as Tracey? Can you tell your story? Isn’t that an artist's Job?
The classical world forgets this all the time. It’s mostly about prestige, virtuosity, spectacle, razzle dazzle. And the industry forgets that music isn’t something that should be used to compete with, to show off with, to create hierarchies - it’s to communicate something that is incommunicable. To explain the unexplainable.
Maybe I was mean’t to see her work when I was 16, when I was in the thick of it, and then again when I’m finally old enough to truly feel it. The universe is funny like that isn’t it. These sort of ‘full circle’ moments.
So if you were planning on going to the exhibition, go. The pain doesn’t go away, in-fact, it intensifies, but at least she get’s it. You might just feel a teeny bit less alone.
