About Sarah Lucas

Sarah Lucas' works are about sex or sexuality in relation to the male and female body, as presented in words and pictures in our contemporary culture. Her works are an ambiguous mix of a moral stance and a genuine fascination. In a large number of self-portraits Sarah Lucas has challenged sexual stereotypes and gender representations. She depicts herself deliberately androgynously, wearing heavy boots, denims and t-shirts and in addition her poses are more masculine than feminine. Born in 1962 in London, Sarah Lucas studied at the influential art school Goldsmiths College in London (1984-87). Before that she attended the Working Men's College (1982-83) and the London College of Printmaking (1983-84). In 1988 she participated in the famous "Freeze" exhibition, which has evolved to be the unofficial kickoff of the YBA art season, in the London Docklands which brought together a number of artists from Goldsmiths College and was coordinated by Damien Hirst. This initial 'Freeze" was the first of a number of significant exhibitions curated by these artists. Sarah Lucas had her first solo exhibition, "Penis Nailed to a Board", in the artist run gallery City Racing in 1992. Lucas participated in Saatchi Gallery's Young British Artists II in 1993. Also, in 1993 she and Tracey Emin set up the shop-cum-gallery in Bethnal Green Road in London's East End. The Shop was a parody of the commercial galleries of the 1980s, selling t-shirts reading "I'm so fucky" and "Have you wanked over me yet?" as well as Damien Hirst ashtrays, penis sculptures, clothes, etc. Parties were thrown every Saturday but nothing was announced; everything was word of mouth. Advertising guru and art collector Charles Saatchi acquired a number of her works, ensuring her participation in a few significant exhibitions up through the 1990s, culminating in "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection" at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1997. The exhibition was subsequently mounted in Berlin and New York. In 1995 Lucas participated in the exhibition "Brilliant New Art from London", at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Since the mid-1990s she has participated in numerous exhibitions around the world. Today Sarah Lucas ranks as one the YBA generation's principal artists. She exhibited in the fiftieth Venice Biennial in 2003. Lucas' works (photography, sculpture and installation) are teaming with irony and sarcasm. She has pushed what is allowed for a female artist to new frontiers. Along with Sam Taylor-Wood and Tracey Emin, she has set new standards of female art. Lucas is expressed by adopting a deliberately mannish identity in her works that some people perceive as typically lesbian and Taylor-Wood by portraying herself as a 'slut'. Sarah Lucas often employs metaphors that represent or symbolize sexual body parts. She exposes the original significance of the not so innocent food descriptions, resulting in crude and often overtly sexual connotations. Lucas' exploration of the relationship between word and image is an art historical parallel to the conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s.