Figure 3 2016

Summary

Nick Selenitsch created Figure 1 and Figure 3 for his exhibition title The Nature of Things, held at Melbourne’s Sutton Gallery in late 2016. The exhibition featured a series of two-dimensional, green-painted jelutong wood sculptures that draw our attention to that totem of 20th-century modernity: the transmission tower. These figures stride purposefully through our landscapes, tying sources of energy to the urban centres and industries that they power. The looming structures initially represented progress and industrial development, but in recent decades have also represented depleted resources and carbon pollution in an increasingly energy-anxious world. It is unclear whether Selenitsch embraces or rejects these industrial structures, or simply offers them up for our contemplation. But perhaps there’s a clue in the series title, ‘The Nature of Things’, indicating he is interested in the fundamental being of ‘things’ and the relationship between nature and constructed forms. In his hands, this ambiguous sign of progress has gained an anthropomorphic charm that compels us to engage with it and to consider its full range of possibilities, from a beguiling figure to an environmental eyesore, from being culturally enabling to potentially catastrophic.