hello, i'm john wilson. welcome to this cultural life, the radio four podcast in which i ask leading creative figures to reveal key moments and cultural works that fired their imagination and had a profound impact on their own art. my guest is tracey emin, an artist who has always put her own life at the centre of her work. in drawings, paintings, videos, sculptures and installations, she tells very personal stories. we met in a radio studio in bbc broadcasting

house. welcome to this cultural life. your life has always run through your art but when did the art start? it took off at school because i missed so much school. i stopped going to school when i was about 13 and i had to go back when i was 15, i went back for three months and i had to do three days a week by law, otherwise my mum would have been in trouble with social services and things, ijust did whatever i wanted to do in art, and i think that's what it was, really, it had become me in a serious way and because the teachers took me seriously and trusted me, that was quite a fantastic thing at the age of 15 when no—one else did, and i didn't have much else to hold onto at the time and if i had not have done art at school, i think god knows who would have happened to me. no idea. this was margate where you grew up. was there any access to museums, galleries, culture? no, see, i didn't even know art museums really existed.

there was something like in my mind, when i was really young, an art museum was where the mona lisa lived or something, it wasn't somewhere where you could go, but saying that, when i was very young, we used to spend time in turkey and i went to topkapi museum, hagia sophia, blue mosque in istanbul, so i had this idea of this other kind of culture but it was partly my culture because i was half turkish. it wasn't to do without art and culture, it was just things that existed in the world, and i remember always being completely, totally spellbound byjohn the baptist�*s hand, and that was in topkapi museum when i was little, and when i went back, to istanbul as i was older, doing different things, i always used to go to topkapi and look at john the baptist�*s hand because

i thought it was fantastic. tell us more about that background. you said your father was turkish, you were living in margate, your parents were running a hotel? yes, they had a hotel. my dad, being turkish cypriot, he came to england in 1948, he came on a £10 ticket, so it wasn't just west indian people that came, it was people from all over the colonies, and cyprus was one of them, and my dad came here in 1948 and he was on his way to australia to see his cousins and he stopped off in england, and his cousins sent him a telegram saying, "don't come to australia, you won't get in, your skin "is too dark," because they had the whites—only thing up until about 1956. my dad was really dark—skinned because my great—great—grandfather was from sudan, and he was a slave in the ottoman empire. have you always known that? yes, my background is not anglo—saxon, and i have never been brought up

in an anglo—saxon way, really. so my dad, all his friends, they said, "come down to margate, it's just like the mediterranean!" john laughs this was about 1968, so my dad went down to margate and bought all these properties and joined them together and made this hotel, and my mum and dad were not married, and my mum, my dad spent three days with us and three days with his wife, and me and my mum always stayed one day somewhere else, and when the big recession hit in about 1970 or whatever it was, my dad lost everything, absolutely everything, and my mum, not being married to my dad and being dependent on my dad, she lost everything too. and then we went...my dad did not really help us, he sort ofjust vanished off the scene for a while, and we went and squatted in a cottage, so that was in

the �*70s, and my mum then, from owning a hotel, then worked at a hotel, as a chambermaid, so it was really strange, a reversal of fortunes, and so we went from having lots to having nothing, so almost overnight. initially, you studied fashion, didn't you? i left school when i was 13, went back when i was 15, left when i was 15 — as soon as i was legally able to leave school, the first of may i think i left, i moved to london with a holdall with two david bowie albums and some clothes and got a job in a clothes shop. at 15? yeah, and i stayed in a squat in warren street, very well creative — very well—known creative names came from that squat and they all went to art school, and i wanted to go to art school. but when i went back to margate and i was homeless, completely

homeless, my mum wasn't there anymore, we didn't have a house or anything and i had to live in dhs bed and breakfast, i was like 17, and that was probably one of the lowest points of my life, being completely homeless and having food vouchers. and i went to the job op thing, and i said i wanted to be an artist and they said, "well, you haven't got "any 0 levels or a levels," so i applied to a foundation course at medway college of design, and lied on the form saying i had 0 levels, and i got an interview, and i got in, and as i was going out the door, they said, "leave your certificates "with the office," and i said, "what certificates?" and they said, "your..." and i could lie on the paper but i could not lie to their faces, and i said i didn't have any. you had no qualifications? no. so they said, "what's in that basket?" and in the basket, i had all these clothes i made myself,

so i showed them all these clothes and they said, "would you like to do fashion?" and i said, "well...0k," and i didn't want to really to, i wanted to do the foundation course, but it was better than nothing, but actually it wasn't, i hated it, so i wanted to do fine art, so i heard joe strummer on the radio talking about sirjohn cass school of art and the fact that you could go there with no qualifications, you just showed your portfolio and it was a pound per year. so i went to sirjohn cass for an interview and i got in to do the foundation course and they said i was wasting my time, i should do a degree. they wrote me a glorious reference, i did my degree at maidstone and ijust loved it, i excelled, and i got a first — so, my first qualification was a first—class degree. we have asked you to talk about the key moments of your life and the most important artworks that have had a profound effect

on your creativity, and the first once that you have chosen is a painting, one that you saw at the tate. yes, the rothko painting, pink and yellow. i was 22 when i first went to the tate and i was with some friends and i pretended that it kind of wasn't my first time, and then i was walking through and i came across this rothko painting which of course i did not know it was rothko, and i wasjust staring at it, and there was a bench, and i sat down and i sobbed and sobbed and cried and cried looking at this painting. it was, to me, it was like the most amazing thing, it was like looking at either the most beautiful sunset, or the most — but i felt it. i felt this painting shake, i felt — it tremored. it was not standing still for me when i looked at it, i could feel it vibrate, and i didn't know anything about rothko, and i didn't pursue anything about rothko afterwards.

it was only later when i did find out about rothko and read about rothko that i thought, "oh, my god, how..." and then i realised something, very early on, that art, true art should resonate, should make you feel. it is not a picture, it is not a thing, is not an object, it is a true entity, a true thing that has energy, that comes from somewhere, that's what makes it art. if you talk to people on the street and ask them who tracey emin is, they would probably associate you with my bed, or the other work, the tent, which is called everyone i ever slept with, 1963-1995. do you think the painting has been overlooked? no, i think i have been overlooked, i don't think the painting has been overlooked. i think people didn't understand the seriousness of my work over the past 20 years. i think theyjust thought i was some sort of narcissistic,

deranged, screaming banshee. 20 years ago i was accused of being narcissistic, and moaning — moaning about myself, when i wasn't. i was — and still am — making work about rape, making work about abuse, making work about heartbreak, making work about, you know, it's something for everybody to look at and go, "oh ,my god, let's talk about this "subject, let's open this up," and i've always been doing this. and i think now because a lot of, like, me too and all these different women, and people have had to start to listen and industry and commerce has had to start to listen as well, and i think more people are looking at my work and going, "oh my god, "she wasn't moaning, she was..." i was actually talking about really serious issues. over the last year or so you have been incredibly ill, you have undergone several operations. one operation.

was it one? one, all at once. but a lot happening? a lot happened, yes. how has that experience influenced the way you work and a sort of work you have made in recent months, do you think? first of all, i haven't hardly made any work in the past year at all, because i physically could not stand up. so my paintings are really robust, really physical, i mean, like, really charged up, really full of energy, and it's almost like the life force, all the energy comes through you when you put the paint on, it's notjust like colouring in or whatever, it's real, so i haven't been well enough to do that over the last year and to be honest, i have only just really started working again. i think you said — you've probably said many times that art saved your life. now that science has also saved your life, has that given new meaning to the art? no. science saved my life, definitely, medical science,

my surgeon was wonderful, a robot actually did all the surgery which is quite incredible, but love saved me. i really think love saved me this time, not art. what you mean? love. i fell in love, just before i found out i had cancer, and i think that made me feel, i made something once that said everything is different when you're in love. and it is, the rain is different, the wind is different. when you're in love, the rain is, like, torrents of rain, and it's beautiful coming down. you know, when you are really moody and you're not in love, it's just really freezing, cold, wet, horrible rain, and same with the wind, everything. when you're in love, everything is different, everything is much more heightened, everything isjust like, really, you know,

you see colours more intense, everything, you feel everything, and i think falling in love just before — actually, this is really, brilliant, iwas sitting on my roof in spitalfields, my house, and it's very mary poppins, and it was during the lockdown, and i had just come back from my studio, i'd been working for 2h hours almost, non—stop, and i had just come back and it was really hot, it was in that early hot weather, and i was sitting on my roof and i was looking at the church steeple and i had a glass of champagne, sitting on my roof, and my feet propped up on the slates, and i thought, "oh, god, i'm so happy. "i've never been so happy in all my life." and then a few weeks later, diagnosed with almost like terminal cancer, it was terrible. how my life changed like that,

and it also taught me a thing, i think every time in my life when i've said, "i'm so happy," something really awful has happened. but this time, with the cancer, it was such a bad thing, it was such a shock, it was so awful that i had no choice but to deal with it. i accepted the possibility i was going to die, i accepted how bad everything was, and ijust thought, "right, i'm probably "going to die by christmas, i'lljust put that over there, "and now i'lljust get on with living this bit, "and i will become even more happy." i become slightly enlightened, like born—again, and i smiling, i was a different person, my whole soul, something almost like the makeup inside my body had changed or something, i don't know, i can't really explain it. you knew there could be an end.

i knew there was more chance of that than there was me being able to get through it, because the cancer, i had squamous cell cancer, and it's a cancer that is so rapid and fast that chemo can't catch up with it, so the only chance i had was the big surgery, and there's a chance that they'd miss a bit. whispers: but they didn't. touching wood everywhere. touching the studio wood. why and how did the love help you get through? because, ithink, if i hadn't have felt love, i would have just floated off. this is a new relationship you'd just had? of sorts, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. and i just think that being held and being real and having something tangible on this earth, and also i'd been totally on my own for ten years, so without any affection, without any love, without anything, so suddenly the reality of human affection, everything being real made me think, "actually, do i really want to die? "don't think so!"

so i think my willpower kicked in, in a subtle way, and because i'd accepted this, it meant that i could really concentrate on life, if that makes sense. you had something to live for, something very important to live for. but not... or, i could die quite happily, do you see? so because i had accepted death, it meant that i didn't have to fight death, which meant i could actually concentrate. ..or live. you've recently shown work alongside paintings, work by one of your other great artistic heroes, edvard munch. was he already an influence by the time you saw the rothko? munch...i was "ms munch," i think, you know. 1983 or whatever, four, i was mini munch. everything — i wrote my thesis on munch, i was in love with munch, i emulated munch,

i made this really big sort of crazy painting screenings with wooden cups, burned frames around them, you know, i was totally in love with munch. i loved emotional, traumatised art. i responded to it. and figurative art as well, that was the main thing. your next big cultural influence is musical. yeah, i wasjust a massive bowie fan. david bowie�*s lyrics and his whole ethos and how he made things and everything meant that you could be different and you could be outside but you didn't have to be a victim to that, you could use all of that and you could be creative with it. it was cool, it was mature, it wasn't about pop, it wasn't about, and it was about being ok about being outside. and about art. and about art, yes. next bit of the bowie story,

which is really brilliant, i was sitting in a lebanese restaurant, in 1997 or six, and someone leaned over the table and said, "i am very sorry to interrupt. "my name is david and ijust want to say how much "i love your work. and i looked up like that and david bowie is looking at me and i said, "likewise." very cool! very cool, yeah, and we became friends. it was pretty wonderful, and it was just amazing that this sort of, like, the only person i had ever been a massive starstruck fan of, i became friends with. but hat�*s what, you said, �*96, so that's the year before the sensation exhibition at the royal academy, so he must have been in the know to know you. no, he knew my work... yeah, were you surprised? he'd seen my work in toronto,

but also david knew everything. you know like the man who fell to earth, when he was watching all those tv screens and everything, he was really like that, he was into everything, he'd have hundreds of magazines, he'd be watching this, seeing that, he knew about everything contemporary happening, he was totally the person who had his finger on the pulse of everything. at that time, i was on the cusp of, you know, being, like, an artist — if you were in the know, you'd know who i was, and he was totally in the know. did he give you any advice about creativity or fame, as well, dealing with fame? mm, when he played in ireland, and i went with him to see him play, he said, "this goes out to my friend, "tracey, who is going to be the most famous artist "in the world!" and then he played fame, which was pretty brilliant. i was thinking, "what's he going to play?" and it was fame.

so, yeah. i never really talk about my thing with bowie much because it sounds a bit, i don't know, unreal, really, but yes, i was friends with him, good friend,s and he was...it was just brilliant. to me, itjust made sense that we were friends, just made sense. it's interesting, you say about the cover for heroes, or lodger, and linking to egon schiele, opening your eyes to new art. did he continue to do that when you knew him, was he a direct influence on your work? no, it was the other way around, wasn't it? with art, he really loved my art and i really loved his music, but this sounds silly, because i can't sing a word, i can't sing a note and he'd say to me, "i could get you to sing. "we could do a song together. "i've got the perfect song that you could sing". and i said, "i can't sing," and he said, "yes, you could." and i always wish i'd done it now. it would've been brilliant. was he serious? did he have a song for you? yes, he said, "i've got this

perfect song," and i really wish i'd done it because at least i would have had something else in history with my association with him. do you regret that? yeah, i do, and i also regret not being an extra with my mum on fools and horses. i really regret that. only fools and horses? yes! the television comedy show? how would that have happened? me and my mum were in margate, sitting on a bench, eating some jellied eels, and the scout person came and asked us if we'd be extras. i would loved to have been an extra in fools and horses with my mum! did they know you were tracey emin? no, wejust looked cool, me and my mum, sitting there, eating jellied eels and cockles. there are things in life that you think, "maybe i should have done that. "it would have been fun." why did you say no then? i don't know... i was probably too, i don't know, too, what's the word, self—. .. i was going to say, "up my own backside,"

that's what i was going to say but yeah, definitely. i thought i was too good to be an extra in fools and horses. how deranged was i? it would have been classically brilliant, especially with my mum. this is a serious point, as an artist, you're supposed to be really serious, but i take my work really seriously. if anyone tries to knock my work, or take the mickey out of my work, i come down on them like a ton of bricks. that doesn't mean to say that i have to take me so seriously, it doesn't mean to say that i can't have a laugh, that doesn't mean to say there isn't this other side of me, and i wish in a way i hadn't got so hung up on that, i wish i'd had a better balance, really. you've always, throughout your work, explored these really difficult, very personal issues. what's driven you to have the confidence to be so candid in your work?

i think, if i had family and children and everything, my children were at school and stuff, i doubt, i think i'd be censored, i'd have to self—sensor, but i haven't. my whole childhood, i had no barriers, i could do whatever we wanted — i didn't have to go to school, i didn't have to brush my teeth, i could do whatever i wanted and it's been like that throughout my life as an artist — i have done what i want to do. i have decided, as i'm older, if my work isn't going to be hung in the best museums in the world, because it's about rape, or abortion, or it's about taboo subjects, then, so what? it doesn't matter. my art still exists, and i will continue to make it and about the subjects that i think are important, even if they are the subjects that you shouldn't be speaking about or talking about, because they are still there, they are within the ether, and if they're not brought

to the surface, then they implode, and there is an even greater problem. now you are undoubtedly one of the most successful and respected artists in this country, if not the world, but as you've already acknowledged, you faced derision and abuse for years for the sort of work you made. what drove you on during those times? i have nothing else. that's it. that's all i've ever done is art. all i've ever done, nothing else. so it's all i know. so if the rest of the world wanted to desert me, art never did, so i stick with what loves me, and art loves me, so it's good. what's driving you on now to make more work? because it'll help me get well and bring me back to this world, fast. so art, again, is looking after me, taking me forward, and is my friend. and also, i hope love is taking me forward, too, so there's lots to look forward to and so much to look forward to — i have never had so much to look forward to in all my life. shame it's only going to be for about another 25 years,

but, you know, better than nothing. tracey emin, thank you very much. cool voice—over: and for podcast episodes of this cultural life, go to bbc sounds, or wherever you get your podcasts. hello, there. there's no real change in our weather patterns coming our way any time soon, and that means it stays unsettled. loads more showers in the forecast, as we'll see in a moment. for monday, we have some heavy downpours come through,

starting off across parts of northern ireland, before spreading to scotland, and as they worked through threave, brought 15 millimetres of rain in a space ofjust an hour, really torrential rain. that's a bit more than half an inch of rain injustan hour. now, those heavy bursts of rain are working northeastwards at the moment. the rain will ease as we head towards dawn, but at the same time, we'll see some heavy rain pop up across the midlands, running into lincolnshire and east anglia, as well. still quite warm and humid across eastern areas of england as we start the day, tuesday, but in the west, a relatively fresh feel to the day, with temperatures around 13 to 1a degrees. now, tuesday morning, we'll see that band of rain start off across east anglia, south—east england, taking a while to clear out of the way, but once it's gone, it's essentially a day of sunshine and showers. i think some of the showers could merge together to give some longer spells of rain for western scotland, and perhaps through the central lowlands, and also some fairly lengthy downpours coming across wales and running into the midlands, too. temperatures a little bit below average for the time of year, but in the sun, it won't feel too bad. now, wimbledon, i can't rule out an odd passing shower, but there'll be large stretches of the day that are dry,

with some sunshine coming through. taking a look at the jet stream pattern across a good chunk of the northern hemisphere, we've got this pattern at the moment. this is an omega block. now, the uk finds itself underneath a trough. that's where low pressures form, and the thing with these blocks is theyjust don't move very far. it's going to be like this, really, throughout the rest of this week, into the weekend and even into next week, and what that does for us is, even as we lose one area of low pressure, later in the week another one pops up, as if by magic, and works back across the country, and we've got that kind of repeating pattern, the weather kind of like a broken record at the moment. wednesday, yes, it's a day of sunshine and showers, probably a cooler feel to the weather across scotland and northern ireland, where we'll start to get more of a northwesterly breeze. so temperatures just coming down here a few degrees in the south and east, 21, maybe fewer showers here for wednesday. but, really, looking at the rest of the week, into the weekend, and even into the early stage of next week, the showers will continue to pack in. there will be quite a lot of dry weather, even on these showery days, the showers perhaps lasting an hour or two,

but still some heavy downpours to come. although there is no warning as such

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