Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963 but brought up in Margate, Kent. Emin completed an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art and her interest in the expressionist works of Munch and Schiele informed the paintings she produced at that time. She subsequently destroyed these works when she suffered what she has described as her 'emotional suicide' following an abortion.
Some years later, Emin returned to making art, this time using her personal experience to make highly confessional works. Her first solo exhibition, at White Cube in 1993, was entitled 'My Major Retrospective' and included a display of personal memorabilia and photographs of all of her destroyed paintings in a disarmingly frank exploration of her own life.
In 1997, Emin's solo exhibition 'I Need Art Like I Need God' at the South London Gallery and the inclusion of 'Everyone I Have Ever Slept With' (1963-1995) in the Royal Academy's Sensation exhibition, again demonstrated Emin's ability to make confrontational and provocative works that questioned the very definition of what art could be.
Emin's art is one of disclosure, using her life events in works ranging from story telling, drawing, filmmaking, installation, painting, neon, photography, appliquéd blankets and sculpture. Emin exposes herself, her hopes, humiliations, failures and successes in an incredibly direct manner. Often tragic and frequently humorous, it is as if by telling her story and weaving it into the fiction of her art she somehow transforms it.
Emin has had solo exhibitions in Germany, Japan and America and is currently working towards a number of major museum shows scheduled for Autumn 2002 and early 2003. She is also a regular contributor to GQ Magazine (UK).
ROFL, so anything is profitable now days 
