Artist Tracey Emin, 57, reveals she had operation for cancer

Tracey Emin has revealed she was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and is in remission after an operation.

In an interview with Artnet, the British artist, 57, told how a malignant tumor was discovered on her bladder in the spring.

She said she had surgery in the summer in which many of her reproductive organs were removed and she was fitted with a stoma bag.

The artist added that at the time the tumor was discovered, she was working on a painting of a malignant lump.

‘It´s exactly the same as my bladder with the tumor in it, before I knew I had the cancer – it´s brilliant!’ she said.

British artist Tracey Emin, 57, says she was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and is in remission after an operation. Pictured, attending the private view of the newly opened ‘Artemisia’ & ‘Sin’ exhibitions at The National Gallery on October 6, 2020 in London

Emin told the website Artnet that a malignant tumor was discovered on her bladder in the spring. Pictured, arriving at the  GQ Men of the Year Awards, at the Tate Modern in London on 5 September  2017

A member of the ‘Young British Artists’ movement that shook up the art world in the 1990s, Emin is renowned for self-revealing works including ‘My Bed’ – a mess of disheveled sheets, empty vodka bottles, cigarette butts and discarded condoms – and ‘Everyone I Have Ever Slept With.’ 

During the exhibition for the bed piece, two performance artists, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, got onto the bed and had a pillow fight; they named their performance. 

Emin, who has a show of new work opening in Brussels this week, said she has been unable to paint since her operation but has worked on a series of photographs of her own body. She said she feels she still has lots of work left to do. 

Best known for making art out of raw materials, she told The Financial Times: ‘”The ‘Bed”, for me, is the closest thing that I have to [these] works because I stained that bed, I cried in that bed, I sh*t in that bed, I f****ed in the bed, probably vomited in that bed. Everything that that bed is, is in [these] paintings.’  

Tracey Emin poses for photographers next to her 1998 artpiece, entitled ‘My Bed’ at an auction house exhibition space in central London.

Pictured, arriving at the annual British Book Awards (known as the Nibbies) at Grosvenor House, Park Lane on April 20, 2005 in London

Following the release of her most personal exhibition to date last year – title A Fornight Of Tears – Tracey told the publication she no longer fears the critics of her work.

She said: ‘That’s a finger up to the people who think I can’t draw. For me, there’s no turning back. 

‘If people don’t like it, if it unnerves people, there’s nothing I can do about that. I’m not going to change. It’s out now. It’s all here.’

In the 1990s, Emin gained a reputation for being outspoken. 

‘I suddenly woke up one morning and realised that I’d really f***** myself over by talking too much… by giving too much away,’ she told Wallpaper.