LOUISE MARTIN-CHEW looks at the work of Alexander Seton which sits firmly in the tradition of realistic marble carving, yet is full of surprises.

The still-life tradition is one of the oldest in Western art but, in recent years in Australia, a new lease of life has overwritten and echoed the traditions of the past. There is photographer Marion Drew with her natura morte, Tom Risley with found objects and sculptural surfaces, and Ricky Swallow’s carved timber tableaux of fish and fowl (like Drew’s, caught in deathly repose). The lure of the everyday sees artists discussing still life with media from collage to sculpture and everything in between. The recent work of Alexander Seton takes this another step with mutable objects given permanency, carved in marble. In much of this work, it is as though artists are tying down ephemeral realities, arresting the pace of societal change, in media which in themselves require slowness.

His latest exhibition, titled Infinitely near, sees this young artist working with inflated objects for the first time, in a series of works which are juxtaposed with marble carvings resulting in a lively set of contradictions. While he employs technically advanced skills in recording everyday objects (t-shirts, a mattress, a bathroom scene) in marble, Seton’s interest in art theory and conceptual depth is evident from the work. The transient everyday becomes enduring — and soft-looking objects defy their medium.

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Image: Alexander Seton, Washout, 2009, bianca marble, 35 x 48 x 15cm. Image courtesy Jan Murphy Gallery.