We are excited to have been a part of Laura Noble’s exhibition Anamnesis Unbroken (Au) at Espacio Gallery, producing Pigment Prints on Canson Platine Paper.
Anamnesis Unbroken (Au) harnesses memories and reminders of trauma, transformed into hypnotic artworks. Fusing still life and abstraction – using personal past and present narratives – Noble disempowers and fractures the most difficult subjects to turn negatives into positives.
Her visual language intentionally obscures the narrative. Hiding the meanings of her subjects in the folds of her drawings, which are crushed by the artist shortly after rendering, serves several purposes. Her creations do not serve as a trigger to past trauma. They present her method of processing it.
Noble begins by drawing the elements that represent an event or memory. This often involves multiple objects directly present or connected to the event. As she draws, she focuses on the memory in as much detail as possible to infuse her emotions through the line as she renders it on paper. It is then crushed and becomes a distorted still-life object from which she can then create. Through painting, collage, printmaking, sculpture, photography and film, Noble’s works are embedded and infused with these narratives.
Double-sided photographs of crushed drawings are crushed again to manifest sculptural forms. The process accentuates the circular nature of trauma and memory, from 2D (drawings) to 3D (crushed drawings), to 2D (photograph of the crushed drawing) and back again to 3D (crushed photograph of the crushed drawing). Each dimension transcends another. Housed in bell jars, they are accented on tears and creases with 22-carrot gold leaf. This nod to the Japanese practice of kintsugi, visible mending with gold, points to the precious nature of our inner worlds. The final containment within the bell jars themselves provides a final literary flourish. Imperfections are celebrated yet not fully revealed. They are released and contained at the same time.
The work was made during an artist residency with the drawing shed alongside dialogues with women at the studio who live on the estate in Walthamstow, where the residency is located. Workshops with women and children to learn this technique with drawing and collage have also been conducted to share the method further afield.
About Laura Noble
Trained as a painter, printmaker and sculptor, Laura studied both in the UK and Australia and works in multiple media. Hailing from Manchester in the North of England & of mixed heritage, she is now based in London, where she lives & works. Her conceptual work centres around anamnesis, a Platonic form of remembering – exploring memory, trauma, recovery and transformation. From painting in oils to works on paper, including collage, printmaking & drawing, Noble incorporates photography, film & sculpture into her work. Performative acts are photographed & filmed, often using artwork she has created.