Whiteread is a sculptor who creates plaster and resin casts of whole interiors, domestic and objects.

Rachel Whiteread (the last syllable rhymes with 'seed') was born in London and studied at Brighton Polytechnic (1982-85) and also at the Slade School, London (1985-87). The signature casts did not appear in her work until 1988 when she began casting the spaces around various household objects - such as the space beneath and around the bed rather than the bed itself. Her most ambitious work to date has been 'Untitled (House), 1993' where Whiteread filled an entire house in Grove Road, East London of concrete and demolished the exterior bricks and walls leaving the internal space to view - an inside-out house solid and made entirely of concrete (sponsored by Tarmac Structural Repairs). The building won the Turner Prize in 1993 creating reels of media hype which she has behaved modestly towards, unlike her contemporaries like Damien Hirst. The lump of concrete also created a lot of dismay within the art world and Whiteread was offered a prize of £40,000 (£20,00 more than the Turner Prize) for producing the year's worst body of work by the K Foundation (KLF pop group). This group claimed to have burnt £1,000,000 in £50 notes as a symbol of the money that they had earned since releasing their records. For Whiteread's test, £40,000 in cash was nailed to a picture frame hung on railings outside the Tate Britain. She was allowed 30 minutes to accept it or see it burnt; Whiteread accepted the money giving it away immediately. 'House' was demolished in 1994.

Whitread continues to work around the world - her most recent commission was for the Holocaust Memorial for the city of Vienna. She has cast an entire library presenting the concave spines of thousands of books, a symbol of the 65,000 Austrian Jews who were killed in the war.