Fluid

Fluid was about simplicity of line and purity of form: Ray Haydon’s sculpture as pared-back distillations of shapes from nature. Within each apparently whole form, unexpected pathways wend through, like the line traced by an object suspended in water, or the flight of a small bird.

Ray had begun with bronze casting and stainless steel, moved into wall-hung and freestanding mahogany pieces, and by this show was making stainless steel outdoor kinetic sculpture at monumental scale. The Fluid pieces give an immediate impression of wholeness and continuity — and then, inside the whole, complex pathways meander through the form with a lilting, organic quality.

The forms suggest a journey and a return to the point of origin: the cyclic path of water through atmosphere, to ground, to river, to sea, and back to the atmosphere again.

Multiple viewing angles are built into the series deliberately. As a piece is turned — by hand, or by the wind — or as the viewer walks around it, it can move from complex to simple, meandering to direct, heavy to light: a quiet comment on the trueness of form, and the limits of trusting only what we first see. The works leave a viewer content just to look, and compelled to explore.

The show paired the stainless steel Fluid sculptures on basalt bases with hand-shaped mahogany wall works such as Symphony, Tempest and Connectivity, and the stainless steel Reflection and Spirit.