For The Nature of Things, Nick Selenitsch draws our attention to the often unnoticed transmission towers that loom as one of the more revealing, though less revered, icons of modernity. They surround us, signalling our industrial presence wherever we go, reflecting our ingenuity as well as crudity. In this new body of work Selenitsch examines our connection to these totemic structures. He re-imagines the towers as sculptures – something that he thinks every aesthetically-inclined person has done at some point – the towers readily admired as perfect representations of functionalist elegance. Their unintended anthropomorphic presence also produces a kind of ‘charm’; they appear almost humanlike, with ‘legs’, an upper ‘body’ and ‘arms’. Like us, they come in all shapes and sizes; variations on a theme. Beautiful, beguiling and awful, they are emblems of the modern: a condition of being both intimately connected and alien to our world; nature and artifice.
Kangaroo Court, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell, 2015; Play, Shepparton Art Museum, 2014; Folly, Plinth Projects at Edinburgh Gardens, Melbourne, 2014; Chalk and Clay, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2014; Timing, West Space, Melbourne, 2013; Linemarking, Y3K Gallery, Melbourne, 2010; and Linemarking, White Street Project, Frankston, 2009.
Design & Play, RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne, 2016; TarraWarra Biennial 2016: Endless Circulation, Healesville, 2016; Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013–2014; Collage: The Heide Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2013; New Psychedelia, UQ Art Museum, Brisbane, 2011; Freehand: Recent Australian Drawing, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2010.
Artist’s profile