Selené Huff

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Bio

Selené  Huff is a visual artist living and working in Amiskwaciwâskahikan

(ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ) Treaty 6 territory, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Her creative research repurposes the detritus of oil-field industrialism into sculptures and durational performances that examine the connection between these industrial materials and human themes of exitance. Huff

has exhibited her work in group and solo shows across the province of Alberta. In her sculptures and durational performances Huff combines scavenged, ruined pieces of industrialism with hand-forged steel elements, plaster, glass, fabric, wood, concrete, and her own body. Before pursuing

her degree, Huff worked as an aerospace welder building and repairing exhaust systems for small aircraft, and received her Journeyperson’s ticket in Welding from The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in 2016. Huff received her MFA in Sculpture from the University of Alberta in

2020 and has been a Sessional Instructor since 2020 and a Studio Arts Technician since 2022 in the University of Alberta’s Sculpture Department.

Artist Statement

My creative research takes the form of sculptures and durational performances that focus on the reimagining of industrial detritus. I am interested in the bodily references found in industrial equipment, and through the site of sculpture and performance, how these references

might be re-imagined by reintegrating aspects of the human body with industrial objects that have been destroyed or abandoned and left to decompose. I feel uneasy about introducing evermore objects into a world that’s already so congested with items, so the idea of being able to leave behind sculptural entities that are made of materials that have already been repurposed, and have the potential to be recycled for further use, is appealing.

Each sculpture or performance with sculptural elements begins as a collection of disparate objects that are found, made, and manipulated. I retrieve abandoned objects from scrap yards, dumpsters and roadsides; products of humanity lost to time or destroyed in industrial settings;

looking specifically for things that spark a feeling of a human body, have clearly been touched by human hands, or were built to accommodate human proportions. Taking my foraged pieces home, I create new, softer organic shapes with a forge and anvil, glass, concrete, or clay that cradle the beautiful, tortured products of humanity I have scavenged.

I work to collage all of my elements, found and made, together into compositions that explore connections between body and object. These artworks become a means for investigating human relationships with the life-cycle of industrial objects, histories, and practices.

Instagram:  @selenehuff