Inspired by superhero comics, the 1980s San Francisco punk scene, graffiti, pop art and high culture, Los Angeles-based muralist Aaron Noble’s paintings are thematically bound to the subject of superheroes and cartoon characters. Known in San Francisco for his earlier WPA-style outdoor murals depicting the city’s labor history that he realized in conjunction with the community, his work refers to contemporary popular street culture, to Western and Asian popular culture, to the collage technique and traditions in mural and public painting.

Aaron Noble is the third artist-in-residence to realize a temporary and ephemeral site-specific work for the Davis Museum’s lobby. During his two-week residency he will engage the Wellesley College audience and the general public, who are invited to observe his artistic processes.

Born in 1961 in Portland, Oregon, Noble studied in San Francisco before becoming a muralist and performance artist in the early 1980s. He is the co-founder of Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) in the San Francisco Mission district. Since the early 1990s, he has realized numerous public collaborative and solo murals in the United States, Europe (England, Czechoslovakia) and Asia (Indonesia, Taiwan). In 2002, Noble had his first museum exhibition at the UCLA Hammer Museum (Los Angeles) and was recently shown at White Columns (New York) and at PeerUK (London). He is currently working with artist Andrea Zittel on her collaborative project for the Frieze Art Fair in London (fall 2005).