LURKERS | LEE NOBLE

A snippet of graffiti by the UK anarchist/situationist collective King Mob emblazons one of three new large-scale paintings in Lee Noble’s Lurkers. Flanking a London commuter rail line in the 1970s, the phrase ‘Same Thing Day After Day’ lampooned a stagflating England on the verge of channeling its despondency and rage into the sneering nihilism of The Sex Pistols and the working class anthems of the Clash. 

Lurkers is ridden with copies, sequels, and duplicates. Noble engages in a kind of reclamation, using a scavenger’s eye to unearth and reanimate lost missives and forgotten meanings. Images are cropped and enlarged, scissored from magazines, digitized, and then painted by hand, sculpted and slip cast again and again, and presented together without comment in varying states of readability. 

Editor's Note: This exhibition is one of many during the 2nd Twin Cities Art Week September 27th - October 1st. View the full list of Twin Cities Art Week Events.

Image: (Detail) Lee Noble. Green Screen, 2023. Flashe, fabric dye, ink on canvas. 60 x 40 in.