The work: Selby Ginn, Head No.7, 2020. Leather, elm, wire, hook eyes, nails and stain, 45 x 45 x 60cm. NFS.Courtesy: the artist
“The face is the most quickly recognisable feature, and the human brain can process a face more quickly than any other image that may be presented to it,” states Melbourne-based artist Selby Ginn, whose work Head No. 7 seeks to play on this quirk of the human psyche. Set in a dark case made of stained elm wood, the sculpture conjures associations with museums and artefacts, meant to be observed and assessed. We as an audience are compelled to pause in front of the piece and wonder – about its identity, its origins – and place it within our understanding of the world. The face itself is anonymous whilst still being instantly recognisable as a face, universalising the concept of this phenomenon without diluting it with associations of any particular person. This work is made of hundreds of squares of leather, each individually cut, shaped and positioned. The artist’s choice to use leather is an evocative one, using a material that was once alive to shape a form representing life. The repetition of colours come together to create a discrete whole, or “literally making one skin from many,” in the words of the artist. Ginn has created a piece that is both familiar and strange, one that makes material one of the many enigmas of the human mind.