C6 — New Kinetic Work

C6 borrowed its title from the chemical symbol for carbon, and presented Ray Haydon’s new kinetic sculpture in carbon fibre — a material so light and strong it answers wind variations heavier media can’t feel. Works like Pyxis and Hydra turn on multiple pivot points, their forms constantly changing, almost infinite.

The movement of line through space drives all of this work — rhythmic, improvisational, free — and carbon fibre let the line start actually moving. Its strength-to-weight ratio means a kinetic work responds to subtle shifts of wind that steel or wood would ignore, and that sensitivity made multiple pivot points possible: forms that never repeat themselves, animated organically by whatever the air is doing. Pyxis, Hydra, Vela and Vesper, each made in an edition of three, act as organic entities in space, changing the relationship between sculpture, space and viewer from one moment to the next.

Getting there drew on everything Ray had learned across decades of industrial design — including building new machines and techniques where none existed. He works without process sketches, straight into the medium, piecing forms together in response to imagined shapes; anticipating the engineering ahead of time is what keeps the ideas free to flow.

The show also carried new static work in mahogany and copper — the Confluence, Serenity and Universal wall works and copper Flux pieces, spiralling rings and coiling strips drawing the eye along a rhythmic path with no fixed start or end. Even standing still, they’re about motion.