The Gamekeeper's Gibbet

A double portrait of the artists, The Gamekeeper’s Gibbet reflects Noble and Webster’s delight in creating order from chaos, and beauty from waste and death. Light is projected onto an abstract assemblage to create a precise shadow of the artist’s profiles, with the optical illusion in the relationship between the figurative shadows and the abstract sculptures evoking curiosity and wonder.

The Gamekeeper’s Gibbet is an exquisitely detailed sculpture, cast from naturally mummified frogs, squirrels, a mouse, a rat, and bird parts, and bound together by a coiled rope, which wraps around the body parts. As indicated by the title, the work refers to both the gallows-type structures from which executed criminals were publicly displayed and the farming practice of hanging moles and rodents on fences. 

Since 1995, Tim Noble and Sue Webster have collaborated as Noble and Webster. Their dual personalities inform a varied practice, in which their self-portraits are often created from accumulated debris – from rubbish to neon advertising signs.

Leigh Robb, Curator of Contemporary Art