and everyone i've ever slept with. i was told that there was a good possibility that i would only have six months to live. four years ago, she was diagnosed with an aggressive bladder cancer, which she openly documented on her instagram. once portrayed as an enfant terrible of british art, she's now been made a dame by king charles for services to art. tracey, congratulations. or should i say dame tracey? congratulations. how are you feeling about it? well, i'm smiling for lots of reasons. but dame tracey, i mean, it has a ring about it. it's really cool. i don't think there's ever been one before, and it's good. ifeel like it's a new generation of dames, really. what does it mean to you? there's nothing like a dame. no. don't get me singing. 0h, go on. no, i think for me, really seriously, what it means is that... it's the recognition from the king and from the establishment for what i've achieved in my lifetime as an artist, which is kind of a man's world, really, and always has been. and... i don't know, ifeel like i've... it just feels really cool. and the best thing is, i only found out about it recently because i hadn't received the letter. so what happened 7 how did you find out about it? well, i went to buckingham palace for the garden party, and i was in a line—up with five people out of 3,000, to shake the hand of the king and queen. and i was thinking, "this is a bit weird. "well, i'm kind of up at the top here. "wonder why?" and then on my way home, i got a message saying, from my old studio, that there was a letter for me, marked urgent from the cabinet office. so i thought, "oh, i better go and see what it is." and there it was, asking me if i'd accept a damehood. so do you think they were expecting you to have known that before you went to the garden party? i have no idea. but of course, i'm bemused by the whole thing because i genuinely didn't expect it. i genuinely didn't expect it. so the smile is one of really big surprise. and, yeah, it's a real honour. i mean, some people don't believe in honours and they don't believe in these kind of things, but it really is, for someone from my background, someone who left school at 13, someone that's gone through all the things that i've gone through, someone that... i mean, people like me don't become dames unless you're a sportsperson. and when you say "people like me," what do you mean? i mean people from... like, to achieve what i've achieved in my life and through education, art, and be recognised by the establishment on that level is quite an achievement, really. you really have to...push through and persevere and believe in yourself and have... you know, it's hard. it's hard. leaving school at 13, having a single mum, all of those kind of things, growing up in margate... i mean, margate is a pretty cool place, the coolest place in the world as far as i'm concerned, but i'm just saying, you know, i wasn't exactly an a—level student, so to achieve what i've achieved...is a good thing. and if you had, you know, looked back on that girl, as you say, left school so early, raped when you were so young, horrific things happened to you through your life, if a clairvoyant back then had told you that this is what's going to happen to you, do you think you'd have believed them ? i always believe clairvoyance. so there you go. yeah, no. definitely would have believed the clairvoyant. probably wouldn't have believed a careers officer or someone. no. i mean, all i'm trying to say is that i'm happy, it's an achievement for me. but also, i hope in terms of being a role model... i mean, i obviously am not the best role model in the world, in lots of ways... why do you say that? well, ithink, you know, because i've lived for real, haven't i? i've had a real life. but doesn't that make you a good role model? yeah, because i haven't tried to be a goody—goody and i haven't tried to do the right things. you know, i've lived my life how i want to live, and then i've actually managed to achieve a lot, in my terms, in my way. and so... and i also think, right now, times are changing, and the fact that i've been made a dame proves that they are, that the powers that be have a different way of recognising success and what is positive and what is good. and i really appreciate that. and that's one reason why i've accepted this, because i think it's empowerment of a sort. and also it gives me a louder voice to do the things that i think are important. did you even for a moment, when you read that letter, think about saying no? no, not for a second. how did you react? were you jumping up and down? what were you doing? i was in the car — going back to margate — and i sort of kept reading it. and it's very clearly written, it's a very clear paragraph, and ijust thought, "wow, that's..." and also cos that day, i'd shook the hands of the king and the queen and everything and been at the garden party. it all seemed quite surreal. i mean, you couldn't make it up. that's what i mean. and i wasn't expecting it. i was not expecting it. and so that's what was so brilliant. i had no idea. and also a few people had said to me, "oh, "you should be a dame for the things you do" and this and that, and, "maybe the king will recognise you." and i said, "no." and they said, "yeah, maybe in his birthday list." and i said, no, because you would know, you would get a letter. you would... i said, "it'sjust... "i'm happy being a commander." i've always loved being a commander because... you already are a commander of the british empire, or you were until now. yeah. i always thought it sounded quite sexy being a commander. i don't know if dame is so sexy. i think it could be. you think i can make it so? i do, i reckon so. it's just brilliant, isn't it? it's just good. and we're sitting here surrounded by some of your beautiful art. the king is obviously an artist himself, appreciates art. have you had conversations with him about art? yeah. what's your assessment? do you think he appreciates you on an extra level because he understands art? what do you think? no, i don't think it's that so much. ithink... i have a feeling that he likes what i do. and... and also, i recently had...spoke about what he does, about his watercolours and everything, and i like it. i really like it that the king is serious about art, and i really like it that he has an appreciation for it. his kind of art may be classical and more traditional, but he understands what it's like to be out there on a cold, windy day, trying to do a watercolour. he understands what that feeling is, to be an artist, to kind of be one to one with what you're doing with the elements, with the paint, with the emotions. and i think to have a king like that, we're definitely getting somewhere. it's good. mmm. do you have any desire to paint the king? no, it's not really what i do, is it? no... i, mean... ..it�*s really not. erm... i could do a drawing of him easily. him and camilla. would you want to? i could. it's not whether i want to or not. it's whether you're asked. and if you were asked? yeah, of course i would. yeah, it'd be fun. and i think you've talked before, but there is a loneliness to being an artist. is that how you would see it? how do you see your craft? clearly, you spend a lot of time as well doing amazing things, whether it's your art school in margate or, you know, but the pursuit of what you've done through all these years now, to create these wonderful works... well, it's. .. i'm 61 soon. looking good! so that's unnatural. and so that's another thing. people somehow think that i'm wilder and younger than i am, but i've been doing what i've been doing for over a0 years, and i've done absolutely nothing else. i've never swayed. i've never tried a bit of this or a bit of that. it's only been art. and it is a lonely pursuit. it is something which you can't rely upon other people for. it's... it's a sole activity. and being a true artist, you have to be alone and feel alone to understand what you're doing. but saying that, that's partly why i have the studios and the art school in margate, because i don't want to be alone all the time! i want to talk about art. i want to discuss art. i want to share art. so i decided to have more art around me. so that was... it's a bit selfish, really, but, you know, artists need to interject, need to work together and not be, you know, 2a hours a day alone, because we have to actually work alone. it's like writers. they have to write alone. i mean, i've been to margate. i feel like you were already the great, the grand dame of margate because of what you do. and everywhere you go, people talk about tracey emin and what you're doing for margate. well, they gave me the keys of the town, made me freewoman of margate and it was so lovely. i've got like a tricorn hat and everything, and it was so sweet. and i was really, really, really touched by it because i've been all around the world, i've done everything. you know, i've like... to go back home, to go back home when you've been all the way around the world and go back home and feel really happy there, you know you're doing the right thing. and i think for me, margate is the right place, doing the right thing, the right environment. and especially for an artist, it just feels very free there and very wonderful. so, margate is doing a lot for me too. it's not... it goes both ways. when you think about your own art and the journey you've been on and, you know, people will, you know... i don't think anybody watching this won't already know you. that's why you're being made a dame, because you're so renowned. but, you know, a lot of it, very autobiographical. you know, notorious in the past, you've been... your art — do you think you are seen differently now for those artworks than you were, than the reception you got at the time? has it shifted over time? i think lots of things have shifted over time. i think...metoo movement... lots of laws have been changed. i think women are appreciated and looked at differently from how they were 30 years ago. do you mean laws when it comes to the treatment of women? yeah. and i also think that the way i was treated back then, it wouldn't happen now. how would you sum up how you were treated? how do you see it? i think by the press and the media, quite diabolically, actually. so... but, i mean, you know, it's that thing — "she wore a miniskirt, so she deserved it." well, no, she didn't. and now when you look at what i was talking about and what i was doing, i was making art about rape, abortion, teenage sex, abuse, many, many taboo subjects. and i was making those subjects open and available for discussion, which can only be a good, healthy thing. and i was doing it through art, through my art, and also from my own experience. and i still continue to make work with those subject matters, i still voice opinions about it. i'm still really assertive when it comes to women's rights, and i think i do quite a good job, actually. and i think maybe that's also why i'm being made a dame — notjust because i'm renowned, but because i work really hard and i'm vocal and i'm not afraid. i keep my head well above the parapet. do you see yourself now as part of the establishment? and does the damehood make you part of the establishment? oh, 100%, yeah. you want to be there! you want to be part of the establishment! no, it's not that. it's just like, it's good. it's good for me to be in that position, and then girls can go, "wow! "it actually can be quite cool to do the right thing "and not the wrong thing." you know, what's wrong with doing the right thing? what's wrong with working hard? what's wrong with achieving something? saying "i want to be a great artist"? it's only men that want to be great anything, only men that want to be great artists. you name artists, like, ten artists — go in the street and you ask someone to name ten artists. well, maybe now they mightjust put a couple of women on the list, but they wouldn't have done 20 years ago. i mean, things have really, really changed, and i hope that myself and women of my generation have helped to change that, that perception of what art is. did you know back then that you wanted to be a great artist? was that in your mind or what were you thinking of? it's not great. i don't know... great is a bit of an exaggeration there, but i've never wanted to do anything else but be an artist. so, i mean, you have a great athlete, all they want to do is run, run, run. they don't want to win medals. they don't want to be the fastest runner. theyjust want to keep running. and it's like me — i want to keep making art. and when you keep doing what you do and what you're supposed to do, you will triumph with that. and the success doesn't have to be on a worldly level. it has to be on an inner level with an inner strength. and as i get older, i'm closer and closer to what i do and i love. and since being ill as well... ijust got some brilliant news, actually, it's why... i just got my all clear for four years from cancer, so i feel very... it's like a brilliant day. it's, like, fantastic. so i've got a lot to be very happy about. and with the dame, being a dame, when you've had cancer to the level that i had, where you really think you're probably going to die and, you know, you're looking at months ahead of you to live, and then suddenly everything turns around, and life, it's like being born again, and life starts again, and all these really amazing things happen. you feel really grateful and you see life in a very, very different way. so being made a dame isjust like, to me, something to be really happy about and celebrate because it's another marker on my life, which is... i didn't think i'd be here, let alone be sitting here and become a dame. it's... it's just fantastic. i love the fact that you just haven't stopped beaming since you walked into the room! it's just fabulous. to be with a smiling tracey emin is really nice. you... i mean, of course, you mentioned the cancer. i followed your journey on instagram. it's been actually this amazing... you've been so brilliantly open, and it's just been so life—affirming to read what you've been going through and how you've dealt with it. when you... now with this all clear, which is fabulous, do you think that getting cancer and the experience you had, do you think that's changed your approach to art? has it changed your art and the work you want to make? it's approached my whole... it's changed my whole approach towards life. distant boom oh, that's a sign! it's a sign. that's someone saying, "good, you needed it." no, i'd say, "the pearly gates are firmly closed. "you're not coming in!" yeah. no, i mean, i'mjust... i mean, every day now... like, before, i always used to say i could be really sad before, and i would continue to be sad. and i said, even my sadness is different now. how? why? well, my sadness...can be short—lived. my sadness — i can grow out of my sadness. whereas before, i think, before the cancer, i would dwell in it, you know. and i would not look for the positive things. and now that's all i do. because when i thought i was going to die, ijust thought, "well, death will look after itself. "right now, i have to look after being alive and living "and enjoy the living moments." and i haven't stopped. and it's interesting. when it comes to the art, because quite often, musicians say they write their best music when they're in pain, whether that's a break—up or something worse, and then, actually, they get stuck because life's too good and they can't think of a way to write a good song about it. does that apply to art in any way? are you finding it...? it should do. if you look at art history and everything, van gogh and everybody, and you know... but, no. actually, it's not true. me, my art's got 100% better since i've become happier, since i stopped drinking, since i've become happier, since i've had more time. and i'mjust alone, painting. i have one person, harry, who works with me and i love it. i have 2a hours a day to make art and that is like the best, most brilliant, most wonderful thing in the world. when do you sleep? i know. i do sleep a lot. i sleep a lot. i don't stay up that late, really. and... but what i'm saying is, i can think about, i'm free to think about things and i... and i don't have to... when you're younger, you're always urging towards something. you want something, you need something, you want something. but now, at the age that i am, and going through the cancer and everything, i don't want anything. i'm just really happy with what i have. and then on top of that, i get these beautiful things come to me, like being made a dame or getting the all—clear today, or whatever it may be. i just feel like life's really worth living, every single little moment of it. i interviewed david hockney vaguely recently, and he said, "all i want to do..." i mean, that was about his age as well. but he said, "all i want to do is make art." "that's it. "i don't want to do anything else." are you like that? are you, the minute you get up, wanting to immediately start? no, i...think david's still quite manly on that level. i love david hockney. we're friends. he's lovely. i think i have a different attitude towards it. all i want to do is live. so, really having really good quality time with my friends, which is so important now. and i think before, because i used to drink so much, i never had quality time with myself, let alone my friends. so now everything...has much more quality and much more meaning to me. so when i do paint, when i do make my art, that has more quality and more meaning for me. i'm much more connected. it's like when you paint, you don't paint from here and there, you paint here. you're stuck with it. it's... there's no gap between yourself and the paint, when you put it on the canvas. it's one tight thing. so to do that and to keep that kind of energy up is quite intense. so i can only work for maybe four or five hours nonstop at a stretch. and then afterwards, it's so intense, i have to really rest. and you're putting so much of yourself into it. you always have put so much of yourself into your work. ithink... i've got a quote from madonna, who once said that you're intelligent and wounded and not afraid to expose yourself. "she. .." — talking about you — "..is provocative, "but she has something to say." i wonder, what do you want to say next? are you...? you know, what's left to provoke? are you still seeing things in that way? no, i don't think i've ever really been provocative. i think this is going back to that press and media stuff when i was young. they saw me as being provocative, but i'm not. ijust do what i do. and, dame tracey, what is exciting you at the moment in your art practice? what are you up to? ijust had a massive show open up in brussels, at xavier hufkens gallery, which is over 50 paintings, and the gallery is really beautiful. it's, like, a small museum in brussels and that's just opened — a lot of work, a big body of work. and then my next exhibition is at white cube, bermondsey, and i have some very, very big museum shows coming up in the next couple of years. so... you're going to be busy! i'm really busy. i'm always busy and i've got my school. and the other big thing is we've got our first tier tracey emin artist residencies that have their final show in the next couple of weeks in margate. so that's a really big deal. and i think you said before that you don't have to make art that makes people happy, you have to make art that makes people feel. is that still how you feel about art? yeah, totally. i think that's what art... look, art has many... i always say, "art has many rooms." and in those rooms, you can have different kinds of art. my room is emotional and it's about feelings and it's about my emotions and my feelings. and it's supposed to work like a magnet to attract other people, their emotions and their feelings. it's like a place where... my art is a place where people can expose themselves by looking at it and they can feel their own feelings and their own emotions and express themselves. it isn'tjust all about me. it'sjust like a kind of... ..a filter for other people, too. and i really also believe that with art... for me, art comes from this outside place, and then it comes into me and then comes out again, and i've become a lot more open about that as i've got older as well... when you say "an outside place", how do you mean? what do you mean? a spiritual place. like... like an energy or whatever. so... and will you wake up in the middle of the night and have that? i mean, how does it come to you? it comes from... "i've got to do it." that kind of feeling, "i've got to do it." and it's like... and when i don't paint or create, when i feel like it, i will feel mournful, maybe angry, maybe strange inside, dark inside. and then when i have a chance to create, and everything comes out of me, i feel really good and positive and feel really alive again. so... and after the cancer, the first session of really painting in the studio, because for a long time, i couldn't even pour a cup of tea, i was too weak and stuff, and it was about a year or so later that i was well enough to start doing big paintings. and i remember the first time i took this great big sweep of paint and went low with the paint. i thought, "wow, doesn't even feel like i've ever been here. "it doesn't even feel like i've ever had cancer," cos i felt... it's like flying or something. you know, ifelt weightless. i felt really, really, really free and alive, and light as well. and i was interested about something you said earlier about... you're completely right, because i've done it — you know, you go out and ask people to name some famous artists or some artists and they'll mainly come up with men, but that is changing. but did you have a sense at a point that, actually, it was a male thing that you were doing and maybe it wasn't for you? and did you feel at all ground down by that? i neverfelt ground down by anything, especially anything to do... you know, if some man turns around and tells me or somebody tells me i can't do something because i'm a woman, i reallyjust laugh at them and just carry on doing it. i've always been like that, and i think part of it is cos i've got a twin brother, so i've never felt... i've always been treated equal. but the one problem with painting is painting was definitely a man's world. all the great female painters were wiped out of history. well, now, they're coming back. and people... you know, all the big museums in the world are showing joan mitchell. you know, there's a really good renaissance for women artists from the 20th century and from modernism. but, for me, in the �*90s, ijust thought i could... "no—one will take..." you know, "i can't, i can't..." my work was so sentimental and personal that there was no room for that in the �*90s, and there was definitely no room for painting. so i didn't paint. i wrote and i made all my fabric works, and i did lots of, you know, film, photography, writing. i even wrote for newspapers. you know, i did everything else but painting, really. and what changed it? what brought you back to painting? because i couldn't not paint. i had to paint. and then i was painting but not showing them. and then i started to show them, and then i represented britain in the venice biennale in 2007. and it was mostly drawing and painting that i showed. and then after that, i thought, "that's it, "i just want to paint." my friends got a really beautiful little drawing that you did of a bird — every time i go into her house, i'm so jealous cos it's just the most beautiful thing. and quite often with artists, people who don't know much about art or don't know much about artists, they might see your my bed or whatever it might be and think that that's what you do. and actually, then, you realise that people... you're just an incredible, notjust a painter, but you can draw really well. you do have that whole craft inside you. i don't think people realise that all my drawings and my paintings are from my head, from my imagination. i'm not looking at anybody or anything. it's just straight from my head, from my head to my hands. and you give me free sessions of life drawing and i can draw really academically. it's... drawing is not a problem. i spent something like, i think, seven years going to drawing classes. i love drawing and i teach drawing, and i think drawing is really important. drawing's important for everybody, whether you can draw or not. it's a bit like singing. if you sing, even if you can't sing, it makes you feel good. people should just get a pen and paper, just do a small drawing, it will make them feel good. i mean, singing takes us back to, "there's nothing like a dame!" come on! such major congratulations. amazing congratulations on the damehood, but also on your cancer all—clear. yes. ..cos that is even better. congratulations. that's why i've also got a big, big smile, so i'm happy. oh, it's wonderful to see. thank you so much. thank you. cool live from london. this is bbc news. officials in gaza say at least 38 people have been killed in israeli strikes on two districts camp al—shati. and prince william celebrates his birthday with two children and with 90,000 taylor swift fans at her wembley stadium concert last night. hello. the israeli military says it has struck two hamas infrastructure sites in gaza city. hamas said that 38 dead were killed in the strikes, on the al—shati camp and the al—tuffah neighborhood. israeli media are reporting that a senior hamas commander was killed. a spokesman for the gaza civil defense said a residential block in the al—shati camp was hit several times. let's get the latest with our middle east correspondent yolande knell. just east correspondent yolande knell. tell us about th this just tell us about the area where this happened.