Shadow Arts

Metal Fucking Rats With Heart Shaped Tail, 2007

Not all of Noble and Webster's work uses low grade materials drawn from the rubbish dump or the scrap yard – like this welded scrap metal piece of rat love. No, some of it borrows from the aesthetics of the shopping mall or the Las Vegas light show, with flashing displays and gaudy neon inspired by some of the most crass that culture has to offer. As far as the artists are concerned, it's all worth recycling.

Dirty White Trash (With Gulls), 1998

The photo above shows White Trash (With Gulls), one of Webster and Noble's earliest trash-based pieces. Six months' worth of household waste plus a pair of dead seagulls comprise the heap of refuse. It's no accident that it took the couple a further six months to make the piece, during which time they were eating and consuming – as you do. On the wall, the shadow figure self-portraits of the artists take a break with a cigarette and a glass of wine

Real Life is Rubbish, 2002

British-born and -based artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster skilfully skirt the boundaries between beauty and the shadowier aspects of humanity, playing with our perceptions as well as our notions of taste. Many of their most notable pieces are made from piles of rubbish, with light projected against them to create a shadow image entirely different to that seen when looking directly at the deliberately disguised pile.