Achromatic

Achromatic stripped Ray Haydon’s sculpture back to black and white: acrylic finishes over carbon fibre reliefs, each surface embedded with tiny filaments of glass so the works shift and activate as the light changes. All of them were built to hang outside as readily as in.

As the title suggests, the show focused on a development Ray had been refining: black and white acrylic finishes on the carbon fibre reliefs. Without colour, the surface has to do the work — so each sculpture’s finish carries tiny filaments of glass that catch and vary the light. The same work reads differently in morning sun, under artificial light, on a grey day.

The whole suite was made to withstand the elements; these pieces can live in an exterior space as happily as an interior one — and outdoors, the light never stops moving. It included Sweep, the Convolution and Volute reliefs, and Roller, a piece in carbon fibre and resin nearly three metres long.