Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Shadow plays an essential role in many of  Tim Noble and Sue Webster's pieces.  In "Dark Stuff," for instance, the viewer focuses much less on the work's positive shapes (scraps bundled together and wrapped around sticks) and more on the materials' shadows (two heads impaled on poles).  The result is surprising and extremely powerful; the viewer expects to see "art" in the positive shapes, but instead, finds a much more compelling work in the negative spaces (the shadows) that ordinarily take second stage to the objects themselves.  I thought this piece was clever and well-crafted and I was highly impressed by the artists' original use of shadow/ability to create such a captivating, gruesome piece.