Passage

Passage pushed Ray Haydon’s familiar materials into new territory, with a monumental wall sculpture in jewel-toned deep purple. It was built in carbon fibre for lightness and strength, after years of mostly monochromatic work punctuated by the occasional bold red.

Ray is known as a master of materials: he draws fluid forms out of the most rigid and unforgiving of them, and he never loses the urge to experiment. Having recently introduced red into the kinetic works and the resin-coated wall sculptures, the surprise here was Passage itself, 3.2 metres of fluid carbon fibre finished in automotive paint.

The ribbon works — the Convolution, Fluid and Velocity series — are where that material shows what it can do. “I always describe it as getting a ribbon, throwing it in the air, and freezing it,” Ray says. “Basically, when they are made, that is it: they’re free formed. There’s not a preconceived idea of what they will end up as, nor can I force that.”

That knowledge of the material is what lets each sculpture emerge without any sense of manipulation — the source of the finished work’s natural, dynamic shape. They seem to hover against the wall, or wake in a light breeze: weightless, curving, with a calm sense of movement.

In this show the ribbons appeared as new Fluid, Gesture, Evolution, Universal and Transition works in oak and walnut veneer. Standing apart from the wall works was Vega, a large carbon fibre sculpture in automotive paint on a stone base.