Rachel Whiteread

House

Holocaust memorial

Stairs

Rachel Whiteread is an artist that uses liquid concrete to fill spaces. In 'house' the abandoned house has been filled with concrete and the outer shell has been stripped away. You are left with the imprint of the interior of the house, the windows and doors, on the exterior. Whiteread wanted to create something unmoveable and quite permanent. This was the piece of art from which she won the Turner prize. Many people either really hated it or really loved it. It wasn't considered a work of art but a waste of space by many. Andrew Graham-Dixon, in an article for The Independent, says "The house has, itself, become a giant sarcophagus, a mausoleum containing (but also concealing, as mausoleums do) the lives and memories of all the people who once lived there." It does make you wonder who had lived there, what they achieved and who had died there.

It was demolished about 11 weeks after it was made and the same day that Whiteread won the Turner prize for it. Turns out that it wasn't permanent at all and the council hated it. But it's still one of the most admired pieces of work by artists today.

Using Plaster

I have been experimenting with plaster and have used it to create texture.

I started off by printing pictures of each stage of a match burning and pasting it onto some cardboard.  I then mixed some plaster and water so it was quite thick and using a paintbrush I layered on the plaster. Once it dried it had an unusual texture to it.