Emin

I mentioned quite briefly in my previous post how much I dislike Tracey Emin as an artist - I can't judge on anything else since I don't know her personally (although she reveals a fair bit through her work). There is one point I would like to raise in defense of her however: she can draw. Clearly, she spent her childhood making doodles of all she could see and this is apparent in some of her earlier works - particularly her sketches of birds.



Could C Y Twombly draw to begin with? What leads an artist to treasure scrawls and scribbles across a dirty canvas? Where on earth did their inspiration come from? Both Twombly and Emin attract mixed views about the value of their work and although I am no fan, as an artist myself, I too sense a spark of intrigue when I create scribbles. Of course, I would never attempt to declare it a finished work of art worthy of a space in a prestigious gallery, but it is an expression of our internal being and therefore as valuable to some extent as any of my more polished paintings.



This may be where the answer lies: I consider anything I do as signisficant - to myself. But art has a purpose that must sometimes go beyond the artist. It is not merely a self-indulgent exercise but meant to express the human condition and therefore appeal to the wider audience. I can't communicate what I want through a few scrawls or smudges. If people can honestly relate to Emin's work, then fine: it serves a purpose. But a student going away and creating a piece that is supposedly 'Eminesque' and therefore an acceptable work of art, better think twice.