'Marble is a heavy stone to which we traditionally ascribe moral weight. It is the literal stuff of memorials, of statues and sculptures dedicated to the virtuous, the beautiful, the good, the accomplished, the heroic, and the brave.' In his art, Alex Seton, born in Australia in 1977, has often subverted the usual associations of marble. In previous exhibitions and bodies of work, he has used his mastery of the art of marble sculpture to celebrate such notions as resistance to surveillance and control, to dignify the homeless, to humorously memorialise objects of daily life (a hoodie, garbage bags, a jug of milk) and even poke fun at the assumed solemnity of marble itself. But if Alex Seton is witty, that doesn't mean he is not sincere. The art of carving, slow and careful, is by nature a sincere art. What's more, he is absolutely wedded to using his art to express moral concerns. To be an artist concerned with morality, with notions of right and wrong, is not an easy thing in an age that values irony and considers all values relative. Irony is cool. Sincerity is embarrassing. Irony lets you off the hook, sincerity does the opposite.' 1 Like much of Seton's works, 'Best of all Possible Branches'is a branch which is not a branch but rather something else, something not of wood but rather limestone which over millennia has recrystallized as marble. We can see exactly what is intended, the form revealed from stone, but unlike sculptors of the Classical period, Seton shows us his process in the tool marks left behind. The resulting works are less simulacra and more paradox. We see the branch, put forward by the artist as the ideal branch, memorialized in stone, though we also cannot help but see the marble block is was hewn from. It is an elegant deception which Edmund Capon likened to 'Christo wrapping a stone bridge and thereby transforming it into something light and ethereal, Seton has done the reverse, changing our perceptions and enlightening our imaginations about the world around us and all those pedestrian and ordinary things that clutter our lives. There is something very refreshing about seeing the most familiar of things in an entirely new way.'2