Sarah Lucas was born in London in 1962. She studied at the London College of Printing and graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 1987. She participated in the group exhibition Freeze, curated by fellow Goldsmiths’ student Damien Hirst in 1988, and the East Country Yard Show, which she co-curated in 1990. Lucas has exhibited widely both in Britain and internationally, with recent solo exhibitions including: La Fondazione Nicola Trussardi Milan, 2016; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 2015; Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2013; Home Alone Gallery, New York, 2012. Her work has been shown in many important group exhibitions including: Brilliant! New Art from London at the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, 1996; Sensation: Young British Artists in the Saatchi Collection at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1997 and Intelligence: New British Art 2000 at Tate Britain, London. She represented Britain at the 56th Venice International Art Biennale 2015. Lucas lives and works in London.
Sarah Lucas (1962 – )
Sarah Lucas is known for her sculpture, installations and photography and emerged as one of the major Young British Artists during the 1990s. In the early 1990s she began using furniture as a substitute for the human body and her sculptures often use the simplest of materials in assemblages of found objects, combined with an urban sensibility and a wry sense of humour. There are serious concerns which under-pin her work addressing such themes as death and accepted stereotypes of women.
For the series of works entitled NUDS, Lucas uses stuffed and convoluted nylon stockings to suggest aspects of the body. Part of a larger series of works, collectively entitled ‘NUDS’, the works recall Lucas’s 1997 series of ‘Bunny’ sculptures, which explicitly explore the body, using tights, stockings and furniture. The NUDS are more abstract and their amorphous shapes link them formally with the organic, universalised aesthetics of Henry Moore or Barbara Hepworth.