Rachel Whiteread is a British artist, born on April 20, 1963, in Ilford, Essex, East London. She has become one of the UK’s most esteemed contemporary artists, renowned for her sculptures and large-scale installations that often involve the casting of everyday objects and spaces. Whiteread's work is characterized by its focus on themes of memory, absence, and the domestic environment, and she is known for her use of industrial materials such as plaster, concrete, resin, rubber, and metal. Whiteread's interest in art was influenced by her family background. Her mother, Patricia Whiteread, was an artist, and her father, Thomas Whiteread, was a geography teacher and polytechnic administrator with a passion for art and architecture. This environment nurtured her creative development from an early age. Despite an initial rebellion against following in her mother's artistic footsteps, by her late teens, Whiteread was determined to pursue a career in art. She began her formal art education by studying painting at Brighton Polytechnic from 1982 to 1985. However, a casting workshop there inspired her to shift her focus to sculpture. She continued her studies at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, from 1985 to 1987, where she was taught by Phyllida Barlow and other influential sculptors. During this time, she also worked as an invigilator at the Serpentine Gallery and engaged in various odd jobs, including working in Highgate Cemetery, which may have influenced her later work that often deals with themes of mortality and memory. Whiteread's first solo exhibition was held in 1988 at the Carlisle Gallery in London, where she presented four plaster sculptures that were casts of domestic objects. These early works, including "Torso," cast from the inside of a hot water bottle, and "Shallow Breath," cast from the space beneath a bed, were deeply personal and set the tone for her future explorations into the poetry of everyday spaces and objects. In 1990, Whiteread created "Ghost," her first large-scale work, which was a plaster cast of the interior of a Victorian parlor. This piece was a breakthrough for her, capturing the traces of human presence and the history of the space. It was followed by her most controversial and iconic work, "House," in 1993. "House" was a concrete cast of the interior of an entire three-story Victorian house in London's East End. The work was demolished after a few months, but it left an indelible mark on the art world and won her the Turner Prize, making her the first woman to receive this prestigious award. Whiteread's sculptures often evoke a sense of loss and absence, as seen in her Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in Vienna, also known as the "Nameless Library," which features rows of books with their spines turned inwards, cast in concrete. This memorial, completed in 2000, commemorates the Austrian Jews who perished during the Holocaust. Throughout her career, Whiteread has continued to explore the casting process, creating works that range from the intimate to the monumental. Her sculptures often require viewers to reconsider their perceptions of space and the objects that occupy it. In addition to her sculptures, Whiteread has produced a number of works on paper and has engaged in various public commissions, including "Water Tower" in New York and "Monument" in Trafalgar Square, London. Whiteread's contributions to the arts have been recognized with numerous awards and honors. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2006 and was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2019. Her works are held in major collections worldwide, and she has been the subject of solo exhibitions at prestigious institutions such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Tate Britain in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Whiteread lives and works in London, where she continues to create art that challenges and inspires. Her work remains a testament to the power of sculpture to evoke emotion and provoke thought about the spaces we inhabit and the memories they hold.

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