I will be honest and say that as I stood outside Tracey’s East London studio it was with equal measures of excitement and trepidation. As one of the foremost divisive characters on the contemporary art scene, her work is famed for it’s brutal personal honesty. It was this honesty of character I feared may transcend into our portrait shoot. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for honesty. I’m a terrible liar and the only knowingly illegal thing I did as a kid was pay for a Flump at ‘Harry’s’ with an out of circulation half penny coin (that’s not a euphemism by the way), maybe the occasional trespassing too…I digress, this is not a confessional.
However when you have a limited time with someone and a specific brief, sometimes too much honesty (i.e-if they don’t like your ideas!) can be disruptive. On the flip side, it’s amazing when a subject collaborates with you. They know themselves better than I do, so when you develop a rapport and they relax and create their own poses, that is the best kind of honesty and you walk away from a shoot feeling like you know the person a little better.
This was exactly the kind of honesty I received from Tracey. She came with her own (great) idea for one of the set ups, but was fully open to try other scenarios and situations. Even though she was jetlagged from a trip to LA, she was generous with her time and attention and the softly spoken manner with which she conversed made the whole process incredibly calming. We chatted about colleges, collecting chairs and my all time favourite subject, cats.
Her studio also felt like a little sanctuary from the East London Pre-Christmas hubbub. At one point my assistant Yannick and I were waiting for the interview to finish, having set up for the final shot and I swear it was so peaceful and ambiently lit with her neon work, we could have easily had a little snooze.
It was a wonderful shoot to end the year on and a nice start to 2014 to see it in print.