Rachel Whiteread  (British, 1963) 

Sculptor Rachel Whiteread (British, b.1963) is a member of the Young British Artists, and the first female recipient of the prestigious Turner Prize. Whiteread first studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic in England, before concentrating on sculpture while attending the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Whiteread’s meditative, large-scale plaster, rubber, and concrete casts of everyday domestic objects, such as mattresses, staircases, shelves, and doorknobs, allude to traces of human activity, and evoke a sense of contemplation and loss. 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. Whiteread currently lives and works in London.