Tim Noble and Sue Webster

In this work of genius, “Life is Rubbish,” Tim Noble and Sue Webster use negative space to transform an undignified heap of rubble to two people sitting pensively back-to-back, perhaps bemoaning the fact that their lives are rubbish. However, that sentiment is belied by the sheer glory of this sculpture in its shift from trash to figures. In the Nature Lab, we drew only shapes we could see when we looked through the bones of various animals, and while we drew some interesting shapes, I never saw anything like this on my sketchbook paper. If we paid enough attention, and organized it right, we could be dazzled by a cohesive, beautiful image like this one.