Fluid

Sculptor Ray Haydon possesses an enviable ability to create elegant, compelling pieces with an overall feeling of simplicity of line and purity of form across a range of sculptural media. Through an intuitive compositional skill, he creates works which appear as pared-back distillations of forms from nature. Initially working with bronze casting and stainless steel, Haydon has moved into creating wall-hung and freestanding mahogany pieces and, most recently, stainless-steel outdoor kinetic sculptures on a monumental scale.
 
Wholeness and continuity is the immediate impression given of the Fluid pieces: however within the ‘whole’, complex and unexpected pathways wend through the form. These traceries have a lilting, meandering quality that imparts a suggestion of the organic: as the line drawn by the path of an object suspended in water, or the flight of a small bird.
 
Forms suggest a journey and return to a point of origin – the tracing of the cyclic ecological paths of water through atmosphere, to ground, to river, to sea, and evaporating back to the atmosphere.
 
The artist has deliberately incorporated a multiplicity of viewing angles into the series, developing a theme of perspective altering the nature of the form perceived. As the piece is turned, or the viewer walks around it, the nature of the work may move from complex to simple; meandering or direct; heavy or light. With the simple device of allowing the works to be turned, either by hand or in the wind, the artist makes a subtle comment about the ‘trueness’ of form, of the limitations of trusting only that which we initially see. Haydon’s works speak convincingly of the contemplative, flexible state of consideration which allows the fullness of that which we wish to truly understand to be revealed.
 
Throughout the series Haydon creates a state where the viewer is at once content merely to look (because of the materials and overall form), but also compelled to explore (because of the variable viewpoints and complex pathways in the pieces). The immediately satisfying nature of the works creates the initial impact to allow the viewer to be drawn into the discovery of the form: with the levity and beauty of the works, it is no chore to view these sculptures and to come to appreciate their multi-faceted character.