alex seton – ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

Alex Seton, “Soloist”, from the ”Elegy on Resistance” Series, Bianco Carrara Marble, 2012, 95 x 75 x 70cm

Seton explores “contemporary notions of nationhood, security and our transition from the analogue to the digital world through sculpture, installation and photography. Within the framework of marble carving, Seton interrogates and displaces our expectations through overturning historical and cultural constructs, challenging our optical perception and subverting the tradition of the material.

One of Seton’s central concerns is the nature of monument and the way in which we consecrate objects, people and moments in time. By memoralizing everyday objects such as inflatable toys, beds, hooded jumpers and flags in stone, Seton questions the reverence of both material and subject.”

Alex Seton, Carrara Marble Sculptures, “Soft from Hard”

Marble as a medium has been used since ancient days, reaching perhaps its height of perfection during the Roman era – with finely carved busts of gods and man. The material has an almost magic quality, able to reproduce the forms of other materials in convincing detail, texture and form – but it’s never been used for sculptures like these before. Alex Seton, a Sydney-based artist, has been reproducing everyday goods, from t-shirts and sweatshirts, to full track suits.

Seton’s sculptures embody a strange niche between the classic and the modern, at once paying tribute to the sculptures of the past, and simultaneously bringing the form into the ethos of the present. Each piece reproduces inexpensive everyday goods, raising them to an unusual level of idolization, and at the same time raising questions about our pre-conceived notion of how this medium should be used. Each sculpture is realized with the utmost detail; each fold and seam is accurately reproduced with such perfection that it is nearly impossible to tell the reproduction from reality… except one is soft and warm, the other hard and cold.