Catherine Yass (born 1963) is an English artist known for her wall-mounted

lightbox A lightbox is a translucent surface illuminated from behind, used for situations where a shape laid upon the surface needs to be seen with high contrast. Types Several varieties exist, depending on their purpose: * Various backlit viewing d ...

es.

Biography

Catherine Yass was born in 1963 in London. She studied at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

, the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, and

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

. In 2002, Yass was nominated for the

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...

. She teaches photography at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

, London. She lives in London.

Works

Yass is noted for her films and brightly coloured photographs. Many of her works are mounted on

light box Light therapy, also called phototherapy or bright light therapy is intentional daily exposure to direct sunlight or similar-intensity artificial light in order to treat medical disorders, especially seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and circadi ...

es. Yass has also worked with video. ''Descent'' (2002) is one film and two light boxes. In 2000, Yass designed the

Christmas tree A Christmas tree is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer, such as a spruce, pine or fir, or an artificial tree of similar appearance, associated with the celebration of Christmas. The custom was further developed in early modern ...

for

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

, and in the same year along with Richard Wentworth she designed the public square around

The New Art Gallery Walsall The New Art Gallery Walsall is a modern and contemporary art gallery sited in the centre of the West Midlands town of Walsall, England. It was built with £21 million of public funding, including £15.75 million from the UK National Lottery and ...

. Yass has had solo exhibitions including ''Lighthouse'' at Alison Jacques Gallery, London (2012); a mid-career retrospective at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (2011); ''Flight'', The Phillips Collections, Washington D.C.; ''The China Series'', Stedelijk-Hertogenbosch Museum, The Netherlands (2009); ''Descent'', St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, MO (2009). Yass participated in the 13th Montreal Photo Biennale (2013). Her work is in the collections of the

Jewish Museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area. List of Jewish museums Notable Jewish museums include: *Albania ** Solomon Museum, Berat *Australia ** Jewish Mu ...

, New York, the

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is part of the National Galleries of Scotland, which are based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The National Gallery of Modern Art houses the collection of modern and contemporary art dating from about 1900 to th ...

, and the

. it is also in the

National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...

collection. In July 2014 Yass was refused permission to drop a piano from the 27-story

Balfron Tower Balfron Tower is a 26-storey residential building in Poplar, Tower Hamlets, East London. Built in a Brutalist style, it forms part of the Brownfield Estate, an area of social housing between Chrisp Street Market and the A12 northern approach ...

in Poplar, London as part of a "community workshop to explore how sound travels".

References

External links

images of Yass' work
at the Galerie Lelong & Co {{DEFAULTSORT:Yass, Catherine 1963 births Living people 20th-century English women artists 21st-century English women artists 20th-century women photographers 21st-century women photographers Artists from London Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art English women photographers English contemporary artists