My Heart is This: Tracey Emin on Painting
Martin Gayford
Thames & Hudson, 2026
Former YBA-affiliate (Young British Artists) bad girl, now one of Britain’s best-known and most successful artists, Tracey Emin is also an accomplished author. She regularly contributed to The Independent for years, and her autobiography Strangeland caused a stir when it appeared in 2005. My Heart is This: Tracey Emin on Painting, by British author and art critic, connoisseur, and curator Martin Gayford, focuses on Emin’s two-dimensional work. The book encompasses selected passages from Emin’s writings as well as new material culled from Gayford’s extensive conversations with the artist, begun over twenty years ago. It is a unique blend of artist monograph, art-historical account, confessional biography, and casual conversation, which ultimately provides an emotionally wrought and intellectually engaging portrait of the artist.
Gayford has written books on David Hockney, Lucian Freud, and other School of London artists he has known personally. The latest book, however, follows on the heels of the author’s 2025 book, Venice: City of Pictures, which is a portrait of a venerable city told by means of a personal narrative of encounters with numerous extant artworks and architectural monuments, accompanied by many illustrations. It is a refreshing departure from standard art history books or academic treatises on the subject. Gayford adopts a similar approach for his living subject in My Heart is This: Tracey Emin on Painting, perhaps in the process developing a new genre for historical and recent art history studies that is highly visual and personal, without diminishing historical accuracy or intellectual rigor.
Early in the book, Emin relates to Gayford how she has emerged from a near-fatal battle with cancer and has become more energized and focused on her painting than ever before. Although she still must spend several days in bed each week to rest and recover, her other days are jam-packed with her own studio activities as well as engagements with the various art programs of the residency she has established in her beloved seaside hometown of Margate, as well as other community endeavors. “Cancer gives you lots of time,” she writes, “because every moment that you have is more special. That sounds so corny, but it’s true.… I thought, ‘I’ve got about six months; I’ve got to make the most of every day.’ I just got happier and happier, and four years later, I’m still here, getting better.”