“…I wasn’t a kid. I was thirteen: I had been raped, I had lost my front teeth and I had suffered disillusionment with life. But I knew there was something better: there was an outside – an outside of me. And somewhere that wasn’t Margate.
Yet I owe so much to that place I grew up, mainly because it is so beautiful. And what is so fantastic and beautiful is the sunset, and that is free.”
Tracey Emin, Britain’s art enfant terrible, catapulted into public consciousness in the 1990’s. With her came individuality and absolutely no fucks given – a figurehead of the British art scene that was still largely made up of white, middle-class men. Part of an artistic cohort dubbed Young British Artists, her greatest influences were sex, drugs and the body – and this is certainly a key theme throughout Strangeland. But with this, so often comes deeper, darker tales that are largely left out of the narrative, but not for Tracey. It should be noted from the offset that Emin writes about rape and abortion throughout, often making for a confronting read with these darker undertones of trauma always pushing to the surface.
The book is split into thirds, beginning with ‘Motherland’. Set largely against the backdrop of Margate, a derelict seaside town that serves almost as a time capsule to times gone by, Tracey details her formative years with searing honesty and unflinching detail. And yet, so much of what she has written is cryptic, teetering on the poetic and at times totally disorientating. Made up of short, sharp chapters which serve as mini vignettes to crucial memories, you get the impression at times that what may seem like an inconsequential event is actually vital in understanding the woman she is today. However, most of this initial chapter gives us an insight into the difficult start to life she had and provides a clear understanding of how she came to be the artist famed for her searing honesty today.
She records a lot of her dream sequences throughout, particularly in the second part of the book, ‘Fatherland’, which I enjoyed the least. This chapter details the relationship she has with her Turkish father and the years she spent in his homeland with him. Most of this section felt like retelling of traditional fables whilst speaking largely in code, embellished with Tracey’s signature anguish and trauma. It felt like I was on my own hedonistic trip reading much of this section and I was glad when I made it through to ‘Traceyland’, the final part of her story. But perhaps Emin says it best when she later writes about her storytelling: “I tried to tell people about it, but I was drunk: they thought I was talking in riddles or metaphors.”
The third section of her memoir is perhaps the most confessional of the modern artist we know from her work, yet that is the one glaring facet that is left out of her writing - her art. If you wanted to know what it’s like to be nominated for the Turner Prize, or how it feels to have your art bought for £2.5 million and displayed in a Charles Saatchi exhibition at the Royal Academy of London, I’m afraid this isn’t the book for you. This certainly isn’t an entry into understanding Emin, and I would advise reading past interviews or write ups about her before picking up this.
However, I couldn’t help but think this was the style of autobiography or memoir that I would like to write; elusive and protective of privacy, whilst refusing to shy away from the intimate details of tragedy that has come to hallmark her life. It’s poetic, but straight to the heart and although it might leave more questions than answers, it is utterly authentic and reflective of Emin and her art. Much like her neon lights, it is revealing in its simplicity, and yet still personal in its complexity.
Ultimately, despite being left feeling the need to learn more, more, more about Emin, I really enjoyed this book, especially as I first picked it up in Margate so felt some understanding of the landscape that shaped the woman, and who in turn has come to leave an indelible mark on this little seaside town. Truth is certainly a survival tactic for Emin and her ability to be unflinching in her honesty and introspection of her life is something to both admired and revered.
Tracey is quoted as once saying: “I don’t think I’m visually the best artist in the world, right? (…) But when it comes to words, I have a uniqueness that I find almost impossible in terms of art - and it's my words that actually make my art quite unique.” This can certainly be true for the literary individuality of Strangeland.