Michèle Noach
Michèle Noach was born in Sydney, Australia and lived in The Netherlands & the US before her family settled in London in the last hours of the 1960s. She kept pet mice and listened to the Velvet Underground and The Damned. As a North London stripling, George Herriman, Jean Dubuffet, André François and Ronald Searle were her Mount Rushmore. Her interest in code-breaking led to her becoming a cryptic crossword compiler and to qualifying in British Sign Language. Whilst travelling around the States and Australia (where she was bitten by a spider) in the 80s, she wrote for various music & arts publications (incl. NME, i-D, Event, Seattle's The Rocket, Boston Rock, Sydney's Stiletto, Amnesty Magazine) whilst edging into print-making. Her first solo exhibition Night Trick Acid at the Almeida Theatre in 1993 was followed by London shows Boudoir Scrimshaw, A Gal Can Dweam, The Horror Bunnies vs. The Cute-O-Matics, Victorian Fly Syndrome and Salon Vertigo. She was artist-in-residence at Liberty's of London in 1994.
Her 2005 show Nø-âch's Ârc-tìc at the Curwen Gallery reflected her expedition with Cape Farewell (science & art-based environmental organisation), when she sailed almost as far North as it is possible to do, on a 1909 Dutch schooner. In the same year her series of lenticular 'measuring devices', The Arctic Feel-O-Graphs were shown at The Natural History Museum in London. A second Arctic voyage to Greenland in 2008 on a research vessel, also left its polar mark: she has been working on 3D interpretations of seismic profiles taken on that expedition, and also archiving with comparative lenticulars the shrinking Norwegian glaciers. This last ongoing series, Through The Ice, Darkly, the product of physically tracking glaciers in and below the Arctic Circle, has just been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and at Parsons in New York, and was part-funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy.
Michèle is currently involved in a long-term collaboration with The Eden Project, studying with horticulturist Ian Martin the adaptive behaviour of Arctic poppies, which will be her next show in 2012 and the subject of a book. In 2008, also in Cornwall, she exhibited her lenticular installation The Glasshouse Men in the greenhouses of The Lost Gardens of Heligan, celebrating the lives of the gardeners who were lost in WW1.
Her next project, Cloudberries, involves hunting fjordal cloud systems in Norway for a lenticular series about silence.
Between 2004 and 2011 she organized a series of gigs with landlord Deke Eichler at The 3 Kings pub in Clerkenwell, which raised over £45,000 for Médecins Sans Frontières.
Defying the odds, in 2009 she was bitten by a spider again.
Michèle also works as a commissioned illustrator, cartoonist, set designer, and is art director on some tiny films.
Selected Exhibitions
| 2012 |
U-n-f-o-l-d, John Moores University, Liverpool
25/30, Anniversary show, Curwen Gallery, London |
| 2011 |
U-n-f-o-l-d, Parsons New School of Design, New York
Mail Art, A&D Gallery, London Midsummer Nightvison, Art@42, London U-n-f-o-l-d, Museum of Contemporary Photography & Columbia University, Chicago Plaform P, The Duke of Cornwall, Plymouth |
| 2010 |
U-n-f-o-l-d, University of the Applied Arts, Vienna
U-n-f-o-l-d, Kings Place, London A is for..., Wills Art Warehouse, London The Arctic Poppy Chronicles, Works-in-progress, The Eden Project, Cornwall Trajector Art Fair, Brussels U-n-f-o-l-d, University Gallery Northumbria, Newcastle U-n-f-o-l-d, Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall Art & Climate Change, Cranbrook Art Museum, Michigan |
| 2009 |
A Mice Too Far, The Rectory at Spitalfields, London
Salisbury International Arts Festival Artist-in-Residence, (3 year programme), Eden Project, Cornwall |
| 2008 |
One Mouse, One Dollar, No Refund, Curwen & New Academy, London
The Glasshouse Men, The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall Art & Climate Change, Miraikan, Tokyo Arte Climàtico, La Fundaciòn, Madrid |
| 2007 |
Kunst und Klimawandel, The Kampnagel, Hamburg
Cape Farewell, John Moore's University, Liverpool Biennial A Place To Be, Bumbershoot, Seattle |
| 2006 | The Ship, Natural History Museum, London |
| 2005 |
Nø-âch's Ârc-tìc, Curwen & New Academy, London
The Diabolosphere, Victrola, Seattle Victorian Fly Syndrome, Leeds City Art Gallery |
| 2004 |
The Javelina's Sugar Tongs, Hotel Congress, Tucson
The Art Orgy, Will's Art Warehouse, London |
| 2003 | Coconino Pie, Curwen Gallery, London |
| 2002 | Young Masters, Atlanta, Georgia... |
Recent Talks
| 2011 |
The Eden Project with Charlie Kronick (Senior Climate Advisor, Greenpeace)
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago Columbia University, Chicago |
| 2010 |
Northumbria University with Dr. Carol Cotterill (marine & coastal geoscientist)
Miners' Institute with Chris Wainwright (Head of CCW, University of the Arts), Newcastle U-n-f-o-l-d, Kings Place, London Southbank Centre, SHIFT festival debate with Jude Kelly, David Buckland, Chris Wainwright |
| 2009 |
Bergen Royal Art College, Keynote Speaker at Sensuous Knowledge Conference
Tate Britain: Late at Tate, with Sunand Prasad (president, RIBA) & Ruth Little (Literary Director, Royal Court Theatre) |
| 2008 | Science Museum, with Cape Farewell artists Tracey Rowledge & Francesca Galeazzi |
Selected Projects
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