My Heart is This

Gayford is an established confidant of painters, the artist-whisperer of Lucian Freud and David Hockney. He elicits a remarkable trove of information and opinion from Emin … My Heart Is This is the story of how a dark stretch in her life led Emin to a new love and appreciation of paint and greater facility at the canvas. It will appeal to her many fans as well as the gallery crowd * Stephen Smith, Financial Times *
A book full of heart - frank and confessional - that presents Emin at the zenith of her powers, having survived near-fatal cancer and found new purpose and conviction … this concise, elegant and beautifully illustrated study, with Gayford’s skilful and always apposite narrative, is as thought-provoking as it is readable, and I closed it with a greatly enriched understanding of the mysterious process by which life is transmuted into art * Ariane Bankes, The Spectator *
This is Emin: honest, unpretentious and endlessly fascinating * Christie’s *
The structure is simple: dialogue, reflection, image. Yet within this looseness, the reader gains a vivid sense of Emin’s working environment and is influenced by the studio’s clutter and intensity, the presence of other artists, and the push-and-pull of past and present. The illustrations, generously included, do more than document; they punctuate the text with moments of pause, offering glimpses of the work as extensions of the conversations themselves * Artlyst *
A vivid portrait of why she paints * House & Garden *
Richly illustrated with photographs of Emin and her art, the book unfolds as a candid dialogue in which the artist speaks openly about her practice and the central role painting plays in her life. Emin discusses how she approaches the canvas, what gives a painting emotional force, and why the act of painting remains essential to her creative and personal survival * FAD Magazine *
Richly illustrated with photographs of the artist and her work, My Heart Is This is a vivid and intimate portrait of her life and art in her own words … Captures her characteristically frank, confessional voice * Leisure Painter *
A perfect exercise in getting inside the creative process with two of the best minds in the business. It’s rivetingly intriguing * The Artist *
Gracefully locates her work within the long lineage of Western art history … provides insights into the stark changes - physical, emotional, artistic - of Emin’s life after she was diagnosed with squamous cell bladder cancer in 2020. It shows Emin’s determination to not let cancer take away the thing she loves doing the most * The Art Newspaper *
You’ll get more out of the Tracey Emin show if you read My Heart Is This * The Irish Independent *

Martin Gayford is an art critic for The Spectator and the author of acclaimed books on Van Gogh, Constable, and Michelangelo. He has written Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud, A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney, How Painting Happens (and why it matters), Venice: City of Pictures, and Love Lucian: The Letters of Lucian Freud, 1939-1954, among other works.

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