Tracey Emin shouts about Margate from the rooftops so launching an exhibition in her hometown always carried added pressure. She is also as candid as ever and opened up to Jamie Stephens in an exclusive interview.

It was with apprehension that Tracey Emin approached her hometown show at the Turner Contemporary. So much so, in fact, she risked a falling-out with her mum.

“It was her birthday,” she smiles. “She’s 84. She lives in Margate and it was the same day as I had to start the installation but I was so afraid of coming here. I literally couldn’t leave the house, I was rigid with fear. I had to say to her, ‘I’m sorry mum but I can’t come down’.”

She pauses to reflect: “That’s terrible isn’t it?” For someone who previously revelled in shock and putting people’s noses out of joint, Tracey, 48, is surprisingly candid over her fears for the show. “It’s nerve-wracking. It’s a major exhibition, it’s all new work and I’ve done it all for Margate. But as long as its sunny and light is coming in like it is today, then I’m excited.”

Tracey was 15 when she left Margate with one holdall and two David Bowie albums (Hunky Dory and Pin Ups). From there, she sold ashtrays with fellow artist Damian Hirst’s picture taped to the bottom whilst canvassing for donations to help her get her art career off the ground. Fast forward a few years, a tent appears emblazoned with the names of former lovers and the rest is art history. She admits London is now her home and she will never come back.

“It’s a place (Margate) I want to visit but not a place I want to live.

“But there’s a lot of amazing properties here that younger people could afford to buy and put regeneration back into the area but they can’t afford the train fare to commute.” She visibly tenses.

“Thanet is cut off from the rest of the world. It’s £60 to commute and its only an hour and a half away from London – it’s ridiculous. There should be transport subsidies so new people can move into the area. There’s good schools, it’s beautiful, it’s a great place to bring children up. ”

She remains upbeat, however: “I think Margate’s going to change phenomenally in the next 10 years.”

Although created for Margate, the show is not about Margate. It is a reflection of a woman approaching her 50s and as the Vanishing Lake pieces suggest, the prospect of remaining childless. “There’s a thing within society that if you don’t want to have children, people think you’re a bit of witch. When you’re in your 40s, the subject keeps coming up – why haven’t you had children? Its very tedious. There’s much more to life than having children.”

Her companion these days is her 12-year-old cat Docket. Her soulmate and also her muse, he’s been immortalised in sculpture which now sits on the floor of her lounge. She’s terribly afraid she might one day kick it accidentally and break it. Why she doesn’t move it is just Tracey’s way.

If the enfant-terrible has softened with age, so has her work: less scratchy, more spontaneous – a sign she’s enjoying the moment and life in general. The subdued, strangely relaxing Blue Room is light years from earlier pieces that threatened to take out your eyes on the end of a Stanley. The gore is still there – a blood-stained Union Jack lies in a gently rusted bath in the centre room – but there is a definite sense that the Wild Child is hanging up her spurs or at least putting them to one side for a moment.

“It’s my age – what am I going to do? Keep fighting everything ? I haven’t got the time, I’ve just got to get on and stop worrying about what’s negative. I have a fantastic life I don’t have a lot to complain about. Even if people don’t like my work, I still think they should use it as an excuse to come down. Even if you want to come down and slag me off, I don’t care, just come down.”

Happy to prove critics wrong

Like Turner himself, Tracey Emin has had her fair share of detractors but She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea is a world away from the Unmade Bed that crept so brilliantly up the noses of the art intelligentsia and threatened to topple their soapboxes.

Watercolours, monoprints and tapestries showcase both her talent and technique and put pay to those who believe you’re only a ‘proper’ artist if you can draw a horse. But fans of her early work will still have stuff to applaud: Yes, there’s a mattress.

There by as much luck as design, it now resides at the Turner rather than fall into the hands of unscrupulous refuse collectors.

“I took that off my bed in 2002,” said Tracey.

“I got a new mattress so it had to go outside. I phoned the council and they said leave it out at 9am and we’ll pick it up at some point during the day. I’m sorry but the idea of me leaving my mattress outside my house is not happening. I took it to my studio and I was going to chainsaw it into tiny pieces. But I just kept looking at it.”

The heavily-stained mattress shows the artist that was once so happy to make her private life so public has not completely changed her spots. Or her sheets…

“I’m not shy of anything. I’ve already shown enough of myself to Margate” she adds impishly.

There’s still more than enough on show, though. A whole series of fairly explicit nude self-portaits bookend similar pieces by Turner and Rodin, whose sculpture the Kiss famously welcomes visitors to the Turner foyer. It’s something that sits extremely comfortably with Tracey.

“I like the idea that I’m the filling in a Turner Rodin sandwich” she laughs.

Tracey Emin’s show She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea runs at the Turner Contemporary in Margate until Sunday, September 23. Admission is free. The exhibition contains work of an adult nature so please use your discretion when visiting with children. Call 01843 233000.