Noble favourite

In this year's Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain, my favourite of the 4 shortlisted artists is Paul Noble. Shortlisted because of his drawings of the fictional city of Nobson Newtown shown at the Gagosian Gallery, Noble's works on display here start with a word. He then draws around this word to create landscapes with strange biomorphic shapes contrasting with structures that appear to be man-made. When walking round looking at these works, it was like a game to see if you can spot where in each piece this starting point is.

In Villa Joe (Front View) (2005-6) (below) there's an obvious nod to Henry Moore with some of the shapes in the landscape being very similiar to Moore's sculptures. These include a drawing of Three Points (1939-40), which is part of the Tate Collection.

 

 

 

Some of these organic shapes in the drawings on the walls are then transformed into three dimensions by sculptures in the middle of the room. The photo below of a detail from (Large) TREV (2012) shows one of the contrasting 'man-made' structures.

 



 

 

 

Noble's drawing Lidonob (2000) is still on display in the A Walk Through the Twentieth Century galleries at Tate Britain.

 



http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/turner-prize-2012?gclid=CLeFy7LikrMCFXHLtAodv1MALA