Sunday, May 12, 2013

Rachel Whiteread


Rachel Whiteread



            Sculpture artist Rachel Whiteread is the first woman to have won the Turner Prize in 1993.  Her sculptures are often in the form of casts.  These casts are of ordinary objects.  Often, she will take casts of the negative space inside an object, such as the inside of a house.  One of her most famous casts is House, which is a cast she took of the inside of a Victorian style house.  Whiteread’s series Untitled (One Hundred Spaces) is a series of resin casts featuring the space underneath furniture.  Rachel Whiteread uses plaster, rubber, and resin in her casting process.  Other objects she has casted include bookshelves, furniture, cardboard boxes, and many others.    

            I think Rachel Whiteread’s casts of objects are interesting, especially the negative space casts.  I like the idea of turning negative space into positive space.  I also like that she thinks of this process as solidifying the residue of the years of use the object has seen, such as the furniture resin casts.  These minimalist sculptures really make the viewer think about these places that exist in everyday life, but are rarely noticed.  I am also inspired by her works that are displayed outside, because many of these works are the cast of the “inside” of something, yet they are being displayed outdoors.  I like the concept of her bringing the “inside” to the “outside”.

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