Tracey Emin on Her 2007 Venice Biennale Pavilion and Artistic Process

In a 2007 interview, Tracey Emin discusses her upcoming exhibition at the British Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. She explains that she will present paintings, drawings, and neon works, deliberately excluding sculpture, embroidery, tent, bed, film, or photography. Emin describes two paintings she had started two and a half years earlier, finished in November, which she compares to the gestural expressionism of Willem de Kooning and Cy Twombly. She spent December deciphering their 'secret code' to integrate them into her Biennale project. Emin reflects on her earlier career, including her first solo exhibition at White Cube in 1993, which she called a 'retrospective,' and the Tracey Emin Museum, a shop on Waterloo Road funded by selling 'Emin Bonds' (limited-edition prints) for £50 to £500. She also discusses her view that the self is the center of one's dreams, her mixed Turkish-British identity, and her belief that repetition strengthens roots, referencing her abortion. The interview covers her shift from intellectual intentions to a focus on painting itself. Emin was born in London in 1963 and lives and works there.