Sue Webster, Biography

Sue Webster is an artist who established her reputation in the mid-1990s, working with her then-partner of 25 years, Tim Noble. Together they rose to prominence making abstract shadow sculptures assembled from seemingly random objects. These sculptures, when lit by a single light source transformed into representational self-portraits. To make something from nothing became an important part of their DIY signature approach, influenced in part by the philosophy of British Punk. Alongside their shadow sculptures, they also took light sculpture into a different realm, creating signs which perpetually flash out messages of everlasting love, as well as hate.

In order to secure the perfect living and working environment in which to create, Webster has famously collaborated with Sir David Adjaye — one of the world's most imaginative and sought-after architects. Completed in 2002, the Dirty House in Shoreditch was the first of two distinctive and ambitious residential projects realised together. More recently they saved the ultimate structure-with-a-story, taking the infamous Mole Man of Hackney's derelict ruin and transforming it into a bespoke home and studio.

Webster published her second visual biography I Was a Teenage Banshee in 2019. A Künstlerroman (artist's coming of age novel), the book combines personal memoir with a visual narrative of her evolution as an artist, and describes how listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees helped guide her through a troubled adolescence. It follows The Folly Acres Cook Book (2014), a semi-autobiographical book which offered readers a rare glimpse into life as one half of the acclaimed artist-duo which combined somewhat abstract recipes alongside drawings, photographs, thoughts and anecdotes from the Gloucestershire smallholding that she shared with Tim Noble.

Webster's most recent body of work Full Leather Jackets (2019-2021) continues her exploration of Siouxsie and the Banshee's ongoing influence on her life and work.

Sue during her A Level Art class, Longslade sixth form, Birstall,
Leicester, 1984.