The Purpose of Art

What Tracey Emin reminded me about the power of art to make us feel

Exhibition: Tracey Emin: A Second Life, Tate Modern, London

Visited: August 2026

Recently, I visited Tracey Emin: A Second Life at Tate Modern, a major exhibition spanning 40 years of the artist's career. Walking through the exhibition, I was reminded of something which can sometimes be overlooked when we think about art: one of its purposes is simply to make us feel.

Art can be beautiful to look at. It can complement a room, introduce colour, create balance or become a focal point. But its purpose can extend far beyond aesthetics. At its most powerful, art can make us feel something we didn't expect to feel. Emin's work makes this particularly clear. Her practice is provocative, raw, uncomfortable and deeply personal. Across four decades, she has transformed her own experiences, relationships, grief, trauma and vulnerability into paintings, sculpture, film, text and installation. The exhibition doesn't shy away from difficult subjects or difficult emotions. Instead, it puts them directly in front of us. And that can be uncomfortable.

Her work can evoke empathy, sadness, disgust, shame, anger, tenderness or recognition. Sometimes it is difficult to look at. Sometimes it feels intensely private, as though you are being given access to something you perhaps shouldn't be seeing. But that discomfort is part of the point. The work asks something of you as the viewer. It doesn't simply ask you to look; it asks you to respond.

This is one of the things I find most interesting about art. An artist can take an experience that is deeply personal and transform it into something that another person can encounter, interpret and feel. The artwork becomes a way of processing an emotion, documenting an experience, communicating something that might otherwise be difficult to articulate.

In Emin's case, that process is particularly exposed. Her work demonstrates how art can be a form of commentary on the human experience: on love and loss, sex and relationships, shame and vulnerability, illness, grief and survival. Some of these are subjects we might prefer not to talk about. But by bringing them into the gallery, Emin creates an opportunity for conversation.

And perhaps that is another purpose of art: to say something that needs to be said.

It might challenge us. It might provoke us. It might make us uncomfortable. It might even make us feel less alone.

There is something very human about that process. We make things to communicate, to remember, to understand and to be understood. Emin's work demonstrates this in an especially direct way, but the principle extends far beyond her practice.

It also made me think about how we approach art in our own homes. We are not necessarily looking to surround ourselves with work that makes us uncomfortable. Quite the opposite. When choosing art for a home, we might want to create a particular atmosphere: somewhere joyful and energetic, somewhere calm and restorative, somewhere warm and inviting. But the emotional response to a piece of art can still be an important part of that decision.

This is something we consider at Haven and Hue. We look at a collection as a whole, almost as an exhibition within the home, considering what the works collectively say about the personality of the space and the person who lives there. But we also consider each piece individually: how it makes us feel, and how that feeling interacts with the room around it.

Imagine a piece of artwork in a dynamic living space such as a games room. Bright colours, geometric shapes, movement and energetic patterns might reinforce the sense of joy and activity already taking place in the room. In contrast, a bedroom might call for something softer. A more muted, warmer palette, gentle lines or forms inspired by nature can help create a sense of calm. Perhaps the colours recall a sunset, the movement of a gentle sea breeze, or the quietness of a landscape.

The artwork doesn't have to literally depict these things. It can simply make us feel them.

And that, for me, was the lasting reminder from A Second Life. It isn't enough to simply enjoy looking at a piece of art. Of course, that is part of the pleasure. But there can be something much deeper happening between the artwork, the space and the person looking at it.

Art can hold a memory. It can communicate an experience. It can provoke a conversation.

And above all, it can make us feel.