Tracey Emin diagnosed with cancer and has organs removed and stoma bag fitted
Artist Tracey Emin, famous for her unmade bed and the tent Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, has opened up about being diagnosed with cancer earlier this year
Tracey Emin has opened up about her devastating cancer diagnosis.
The artist, 57, is now in remission following an operation, but has had many of her reproductive organs removed and a stoma bag fitted.
Emin, best known for works such as her unmade bed and the tent Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, was diagnosed in spring and underwent an operation in the summer.
She told Artnet she had been working on a painting of a malignant lump when the tumour in her bladder was discovered.
Speaking about the painting, she told the publication: “It’s exactly the same as my bladder with the tumour in it, before I knew I had the cancer – it’s brilliant!”
Emin recently completed a new collection, Detail of Love, which opens this month in Brussels.
She said: “At my age now, love is a completely different dimension and level of understanding.
“I don’t want children, I don’t want all the things that you might subconsciously crave when you’re young – I just want love.
“And as much love as I can possibly have. I want to be smothered in it, I want to be devoured by it. And I think that is OK.”
She also reflected on the Me Too movement and how she had previously been criticised for discussing her own experience of sexual assault.
She said: “Now, there is a language for women to express themselves, thanks to Me Too.
“It’s good that times are catching up, but I wish I hadn’t been accused of being narcissistic back then.”
Since her operation, Emin has been unable to paint, although she has worked on a series of photographs of her own body as part of an “existential” project.
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