Selma Selman

Repeatedly evoking the motif of scrap metal collecting and recycling, I question the ways in which we assign value to material objects, labour, and how we relate to both. In my works I carve out separate pieces from vehicles that reside between the painterly and the sculptural. Having had a very personal relationship with metal since childhood, the scrap metal works fuse impressions of everyday life, art history, colloquial language and my own personal experiences. Through my performances, I expose the connectivity of all beings through the specificities of my personal experiences. It is important to me that my work communicates to different kinds of audiences, both to those who are part of the art world and those who are not. This may explain the oscillations of experience in the audience – which also results in me being both emotionally exhausted and relieved after performative acts.

Both artistic practices encourage and enable the re-evaluation of what is assumed to be unchangeable, impossible, or non-negotiable – pointing to the indefinite and dreamlike nature of the reality we live in.