Catherine Yass

Who is Catherine Yass?

Catherine Yass is an English artist.

Catherine Yass was born in 1963 in London, and lives and works in the UK. In 2002, Yass was nominated for the Turner prize.

She studied at the Slade School of Art, London and then at Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. She received a Boise travelling scholarship for the period 1986-1987 and then graduated with an MA from Goldsmiths College, London in 1990. Major recent commissions include Decommissioned for JCC, The Jewish Community Centre, London; Rambert, for the Rambert Dance Company, London; and Split Sides, Merce Cunningham, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York.

Yass is noted for her films and brightly coloured photographs. Her stills present an image which is usually a combination of the positive and negative. Many of her works are mounted on light boxes. Yass's subjects are varied: her early works often depict the people and institutions who commissioned, supported, or curated her work. Later she concentrated on interiors, making a series of photos of Smithfields Market in London, and another, Corridor, of a mental hospital. Other series included shots of toilets, steel mills in Wales and Star, a series of pictures of Indian Bollywood stars displayed alongside pictures of empty cinemas.