I’ve never been able to cope with time, any kind of time. It’s why I’ve never been able to sit an exam and can’t get out the house for important events. In fact the more important, the later I will be.
I also can’t open things, from letters, parcels, jars, match boxes, pill packets, to toothpaste, bottles and, of course, any kind of modern-day packaging. I will frustratingly pull and tear at things until a friend will reach over and help me.
I’m not clumsy or stupid, it’s just how my brain doesn’t work.
I’m also considered hypersensitive. I’m not supposed to watch the news or take in too many world events because it will weigh me down.
If I could I’d watch the news 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I’d flick through every news channel getting as much global perspective as I could. I fall asleep to BBC World; luckily I have a TV that turns itself off, but this last week has been too much for me. I cried this morning and I cried last night.
I can’t watch or listen to the news. My mind and heart cannot cope with the atrocities that are taking place.
What has happened to humanity? Just this question makes me want to cry.
I’m not over-sensitive, I AM AN ARTIST. I feel this world come through me, sometimes it feels wonderful, sometimes it’s hurts. I then translate my emotions and feelings through my art. Making art lets me breathe, helps me to stop my mind from crashing in.
I live for art, it’s what keeps me alive, what motivates me, what gives me a high. Art has the ability to turn my world around.
True art is very powerful, the greatest paintings have souls. They breathe and stare at us, we are looking through the artist’s eyes.
This past week has been an amazing week for art. Art has kept me buoyant and focused. Art has kept my soul on track.
It’s Frieze week. Frieze is an annual art fair, and this year is its 20th birthday. A huge giant tent erected in Regent’s Park. Viewable from outer space.
Crammed with a million billion global galleries, showing a trillion million works of art by artists from all over the world, including Margate.
I’m finding it really hard to write, my brain is being crushed by so many images. My mind is trying to process and filter but so many images keep getting stuck, a dystopian nightmare frozen in my brain.
I need to paint to release myself.
I need my own visions to appear in front of me.
I need to make my own world.
That’s what artists do — they create parallel worlds, worlds that can give us hope and enlightenment and that is why I believe in Art.
Tracey Emin is an artist.
