Memes and matresses - Alexander Seton at Chalk Horse

Alexander Seton
Memeoid
Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney
until 25 October
Also (upstairs): Marley Dawson

This is LF's standout opening of the week, not least for a thirsty, happy crowd spilling out into the street on a sultry spring night - don't you wish it happened more?

Alexander Seton must be Australia's most skilled carver, with the possible exception of Ricky Swallow. But then marble (from Wombeyan) is a much more demanding medium than wood. The standout installation - actually catalogued as 4 separate works - is a series of minitaure bunk-style beds in unvarnished blackbutt, on which lie a series of baby matresses, on each of which lies a jarring and sometimes cryptic object(s), including a tiny, sleeping, swaddled infant. So far so interesting, although on opening night the blandly-lit space did nothing to enhance this subtle tableau, which seems to demand a darkened and hushed space. Those unfamiliar with Seton's work may take some time to realise that the matresses are carved, with exquisite detailing, from solid marble - the quilting, the creases, the pleating, the subtle textile qualities of matress lining... Wow!

This is a great example of material as metaphor, an old LF theme, but is just an added resonance in an already poignant installation. There is a further subtext - Seton is apparently referencing internet 'memes' - viral cultural multipliers on YouTube and the like. One of the matresses has a webcam as its object, another some sort of high-tech chrome 'wand', referencing memes such as 'The Dancing Kid' and 'Star Wars Baby'. LF isn't totally convinced that YouTube videos can be coinsidered memes in the original (Richard Dawkins) sense of the term, but they are certainly 'memeoid' in nature, and it's an interesting overlay on Seton's more enduring concerns, and the beautiful tension between the hard monumentality of marble, and the soft comforts of 'bedware' as also seen in his stunning Security Blanket series of 2007, below.

Left: (Not in current exhibition) ©Alexander Seton
Self-censoring helps everyone (2007)
Plastic & Womeyan marble
Couresy the artist and Chalk Horse Gallery

Dougal Phillips wrote about Seton's 2007 installation Security Blanket:
In Security Blanket, Alexander Seton brings the fine art of marble sculpting to a conceptual sculptural practice which draws upon themes of memory, play and safety. The works in this exhibition are beautifully crafted objects which marry hyper-real material effects with carefully chosen miniature icons - a row of houses, a Spruce tree, a jeep.

The common foundation of each of the works is the folded doona recreated in marble. Each doona is folded differently, someas if laid out at bed’s end, others as a heaped pile on a teenager’s floor or as a stage for combat in a child’s room. The materiality of the marble is key here. The doona folds have been carefully rendered, with colour of the marble matching the off-white and grey tones of an aging comforter. The marble itself incorporates the powerful impressions of childhood - not only does it remind the artist of his bedclothes, this particular marble is quarried from the Wombeyan area, close to where Seton spent time as a child.

What Security Blanket ultimately offers is a double-barreled question: What does security mean, and where is it found? People of all ages cling to their doonas physically and mentally, as landscapes for emotional turmoil, covens of vulnerability or, in the eyes of the child, a ground-level world to be built on and conquered. In the end, what Seton reminds us is how little really changes over the years.

- Courtesy Dr Dougal Phillips , Honorary Research Associate
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney Director and Curator, 1/2doz.

Back to Mimeoid at Chalk Horse - there is also a considerable cast multiple component, plus video, but it's the rocks that get us off. Marley Dawson's witty sculptural meditations on the world of men's sheds and tools is also worth seeing, and testament to Chalk Horse's ongoing commitment to mounting complex installations by emergent artists, and their brave transcendence of the demands of running a commercial gallery.

A la prochaine.