Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Tim Noble and Sue Webster are artists based in England whose work is collected by Charles Saatchi. They are associated with the post-YBA generation of artists. They live and work together in east London where they collect rubbish from the streets and transform it into shadow sculpture. When a light is directed on the pile an image that is totally un-expected is shown on the wall, typically the image is of them. The art of creating a shadow sing projection is usually referred to as transformative art, it echoes the idea of perceptual psychology, a form of evaluation used for psychological patients, they are familiar with this form and I believe using this technique they challenge and surprise the human mind. They have also taken transformative art further after being inspired by an Egyptian collection of art. They have created sculptures made from mummified creatures into silhouettes of their faces when a light is shone over them, their use of animals echoes our Egyptian predecessors who believed that gods could take the form of animals such as cats or dogs, these were mummified and sold to pilgrims who would then use these as offerings to the Gods, I find it intriguing how they were inspired by the Egyptians use of animals, mummification and sculpture and managed to combine these to create the dark yet witty works of art. Noble and Webster have developed their own cult of personality and an entirely original and different style of art, their self portraits have been made from garbage, dead animals and in the form of Neanderthals. Their work also includes large electric drawings of tattoo ideology and ‘bling’ logos.
I think their use of reusing materials to create artwork is very similar to my project where I reused materials to help children create art. I particularly like the use of materials to create shadow. I think the colour of this art is very monotone and does not stand out much; the shape of the artwork and the shadow it creates is the eye-catching part of this artwork. Their work relates to re-using of materials which is similar to my project as it focuses on creating new things from old. I used a creative method to reuse scrap in similar way which they did.