Anya Gallaccio was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1963 and lives and works in San Diego, CA, and London, UK. She has exhibited widely throughout the world, with institutional solo shows including Turner Contemporary, Margate, England (2024), The Contemporary Austin, Austin TX (2017), Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego CA (2015), Camden Arts Centre, London UK (2008), Sculpture Center, New York NY (2006), and Tate Britain for Duveen Sculpture Commission, London UK (2002).

Recognized internationally for her work with natural materials to create site-specific installations, her works include Red on Green (1992) in which ten thousand rose heads placed on a bed of their stalks gradually withered as the exhibition went on. For Intensities and Surfaces (1996) Gallaccio left a thirty-two ton block of ice with a salt core in the disused pumping station at Wapping and allowed it to melt. At Houghton Hall in Norfolk, the Marquess of Cholmondeley commissioned a folly to the east of the great house, The Sybil Hedge. Gallaccio created a sarcophagus-like marble structure which is sited at the end of a path; and nearby is a copper-beech hedge which is planted in lines mirroring Sybil's signature. 

In 2003 Gallaccio was nominated for the Turner Prize. She is a Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego.

In June 2024, AIDS Memory UK announced that Gallaccio will create London’s first permanent public monument commemorating those affected by HIV/AIDS.

Image © Jonny Walton. Courtesy Thomas Dane Gallery