Absence

Rachael Whiteread’s bed, ‘Shallow Breath’ (1988) was made following the death of her father.
Her first bed piece was not the bed she was born on nor the bed on which her father died (as suggested). It was a found object in a junk shop. She casts the spaces that are often hidden. It is the reverse form of the underside of a bed which takes on the life of the bed as a trace of the real thing. It becomes apparent by looking at the work that the mattress is similar to other beds but different because of this reverse. However the marks left by the casting are noteworthy because they signify absence/presence or trace, material form and pattern and all the paraphernalia that is associated with the bed. Black bed (1991) and Shallow Breath (1988). Textile drapes, everyday found objects, and paraphernalia that surround the bed do not appear to be personal belongings as in Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed,’ (1999) or Robert Rauschenberg’s Bed(1955) but are very relevant to the social context of the period, (Cherry 2008).