Rachel Whiteread


Herringbone Floor (2001)
Edition of 450
Laser-cut relief in 0.8mm Finnish birch plywood. Produced by Lasercraft, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.
51 x 44 cm (20 x 17 in)
Signed, numbered and dated by the artist.
.
'Herringbone Floor' is based on a drawing of a parquet floor. This grid of interlocking rectangular lines was scanned and mapped onto a sheet of very fine plywood. Using laser technology, the areas between the lines were then cut away. The remaining web of material, here and there scorched by the laser cutting process, represents the gaps between the herringbone floor tiles - in essence a delicate pattern of negative space. 'Herringbone Floor', developed over a period of twelve months, continues Rachel's close interest in domestic interiors and working with the materials and structures found therein. The original drawing for the artwork is similar in style to a body of graphic work first produced by Rachel while on the Berlin DAAD scholarship in 1993.