Born: 1963. Nationality: British.

 

Catherine Yass was born in London and studied at Goldsmith's College where she graduated with an MA in 1990.  She came to prominence in 1995 in the British Art Show 4 alongside other artists such as Damien Hurst, Sarah Lucas, Liam Gillick and Gary Hume, who became known as the YBAs (Young British Artists).

Yass developed a distinctive approach to art works using photography to explore human relationships with architecture and psychological space.   She produced a notable series featuring patients and staff in a psychiatric hospital and then moved on from portraits of people to studies of their environments and the physical spaces they inhabit such as police cells, workplaces, empty cinema interiors and the Israel/Palestine separation wall.  She uses film and video as well as photography and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002.   She has also done collaborative work with the choreographer Merce Cunningham.

Cinema: Regal, 2001