Tracey Emin's works are known for their immediacy, raw openness and often sexually provocative attitude which fascinates the viewer. Her art is deeply confessional and she herself has become the embodiment of the artist as a maverick, even outsider celebrity, constantly infuriating the art world and provoking the British class system with her open working-class attitude.
Named by David Bowie to be 'William Blake as a woman, written by Mike Leigh', her public persona is loud, dangerous and unpredictable, but at the same time radiates a deeply emotional and vulnerable side.
Tracey Emin can be considered one of the few artists able to reveal the intimate details of their life in an extremely powerful and honest way. The predominant subjects in her art are violent sex, motherhood, abortion, her hometown, family, lack of schooling, sexual past, as well as her affinity to alcohol. Tracey Emin's art presents the world of her hopes, failures, success and humiliations that contains both tragic and humorous elements. Nevertheless, her storytelling in various forms has the ability to avoid sentimentality and establishes an intimate connection with the viewers, engaging them with the unrestricted exploration of universal emotions. The power of Tracey Emin's art is in the ability to reveal the world in ways we have always known about but never admitted, exposing her own struggle to reach herself, to deconstruct her own celebrity status and her never-ending search for the strength needed to start all over again. Tracey Emin wrote a column for The Independent from 2008 - 2009 where many details of her unique life experience can be discerned. She also wrote the autobiographical book, Strangeland
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/tracey-emin/biography/
