You know immediately when you’ve seen a Kelton Grayson sculpture. For the work captures your attention and holds you present, removing the need to be anywhere else but right there with it. And when you invest in a piece, the moment can be entered into again and again with a look, a thought, a discussion about the piece, returning you once again to mindfulness. Because when you become mindful, who you are connects to unlimited possibilities.
That’s the power of transformative art.
When you walk past the bubbling hexagonal rimmed Three Rivers Fountain in Victoria Square, the history-rich feature exudes beauty while functioning as the walkway and park in the centre of Adelaide; its form follows function, unlike traditional works of art which have no function.
The beauty in art comes from its lack of function, leaving only: respect and reverence for the piece brought to life by an artist who uses a specific process, the result making you feel something. And the form is merely the vessel in which the art takes shape, such as an oil painting on canvas, charcoal drawing on paper, photo collage of the botanical gardens, or perhaps even metal sculpture that combines different materials and contrasts textures like the works of Kelton Grayson.
And when you rest in that beauty, function no longer matters because the work provokes a change in you akin to meditation but without the effort. For you see in every Kelton Grayson sculpture the before and after, the preparation, concentration and discipline required to bring each piece to life, with every single aspect of its journey considered and shared; the journey awakening and aligning your own thought processes of how you came to be in this moment and what you might do if you take this gift of who you are—your skills, experiences and potential for mastery—and self-actualize.
Whether it’s the sculpture, the video diary or a print, every piece offers space and time to look inward and discover unknown possibilities, all you have to do is be.
Masked Head
Cast Aluminium
This piece represents the conflicting emotions of grief and relief. It contains many references to balance, conflict, and juxtaposition. Its main theme is deep sadness of losing a loved one to long term illness, intermixed with the relief of of knowing the loved one is no longer suffering.
Bone
Cast Aluminium
This piece is symbolic of society's dualic reaction to sexual assault victims, in both adulating and then discarding. The bone is but a remnant with the meat removed, and the marrow which has gone, is referencing the emotional needs eaten by dogs. The bone is glorified on a long pedestal, but it is stretched and almost pole like. Such as balancing plates on a stick, but kept away like a taught leash.
Sunflower
Cast Aluminium, Steel and Wood
This pieces consists of stylised rendition of a planetary gearset, which is a mechanism commonly used in industrial machines. In its actual use, the gearset contains parts technically named a Ring Gear, a Planet Gear, and a Sun Gear, which all rotate together in a fixed motion just like the Earth orbiting the Sun. SUNFLOWER references the predictability of nature itself, including both us humans and the humble sunflower, that are part of a great machine.