Rachel Whiteread
Sculptor Rachel Whiteread is a member of the Young British Artists, and the first female recipient of the prestigious Turner Prize. Whiteread was born in London in 1963, England where she currently lives and works. She studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic from 1982- 85 and sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1985 - 87.
Rachel Whiteread is one of the preeminent sculptors of her generation. Her practice is defined by an ongoing investigation of domestic architecture and the traces of humanity impressed upon such sites. She casts the spaces inside and around objects – be they bathtubs or mattresses, architectural elements such as doors, floors and windows, or even entire buildings – and uses materials such as resin, rubber, concrete, and plaster to preserve each surface detail. The resulting sculptures are remarkably faithful to their source molds, but also uncannily foreign in that they represent an inverse of the original object and require a constant reorientation of perception.
Whiteread received extensive critical attention for these works throughout the 1990s, winning the Turner Prize in 1993 and a Venice Biennale medal for sculpture in 1997. She has exhibited her work around the world, and has created several public sculptures on commission, most recently a Holocaust memorial in Vienna, and a plinth for London’s Trafalger Square.
Sculptor Rachel Whiteread is a member of the Young British Artists, and the first female recipient of the prestigious Turner Prize. Whiteread was born in London in 1963, England where she currently lives and works. She studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic from 1982- 85 and sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1985 - 87.
Rachel Whiteread is one of the preeminent sculptors of her generation. Her practice is defined by an ongoing investigation of domestic architecture and the traces of humanity impressed upon such sites. She casts the spaces inside and around objects – be they bathtubs or mattresses, architectural elements such as doors, floors and windows, or even entire buildings – and uses materials such as resin, rubber, concrete, and plaster to preserve each surface detail. The resulting sculptures are remarkably faithful to their source molds, but also uncannily foreign in that they represent an inverse of the original object and require a constant reorientation of perception.
Whiteread received extensive critical attention for these works throughout the 1990s, winning the Turner Prize in 1993 and a Venice Biennale medal for sculpture in 1997. She has exhibited her work around the world, and has created several public sculptures on commission, most recently a Holocaust memorial in Vienna, and a plinth for London’s Trafalger Square.