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 Banks, 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