Kelly Heaton

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Kelly Heaton
Born1972 (age 50–51)
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
NationalityAmerican
Alma materB.A. 1994 Yale University
M.S. 2000 MIT Media Laboratory
Awards Jacob K. Javits Fellowship
L'Oreal Promotion Prize in the Art and Science of Color (2001)

Kelly Heaton (born 1972) is a sculptor, scientist, perfumer, and spiritualist known for her combination of visual art with analog electrical engineering. [1] She is the owner and perfumer for The Virginia Perfume Company.

Contents

Education

Heaton received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1994, and her Master of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000. [2]

She was awarded a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship to attend the Master of Fine Arts program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. [3] Heaton went on to study at the MIT Media Lab and graduated with a MS from MIT in 2000. [4]

The subject of her Master's thesis was "physical pixels", a sculptural effort to liberate computer graphics from the flat screen of a computer monitor. [5] Heaton's suite of prototypes included the "Digital Palette" for sequencing loops of colored-light animation, and "Peano", a system of reconfigurable blocks, each of which behaved as an RGB pixel. In 2001, her thesis work was awarded the L'Oreal Promotion Prize in the Art and Science of Color. [6]

Career

In the early 2000s, Heaton developed a reputation for complex, obsessive and often humorous installations involving technology. [7] During her time at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, she worked with engineer Steven Gray to create her first major sculpture: "The Pool" of "Reflection Loop", a large concave slab embedded with 400 reprogrammed Furby dolls arranged in the pattern of water molecules. [8] The Furby dolls were altered to mirror the presence of a viewer, creating a noisy, amusing and weird reflection of the audience until the robotic toys eventually "died" from excessive use. "Reflection Loop" was selected for the 2001 Annual Exhibition of the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Shortly thereafter, Heaton was offered her first solo exhibition in New York at Bitforms gallery. [9]

Heaton went on to numerous shows and residencies, including the now-defunct Art Interactive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a joint appointment with the Department of Computer Science and Department of Information Science and Information Studies at Duke University. [10] [11] In 2003, Heaton's installation "Live Pelt" premiered at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City. [12] The central piece of the show was a coat ("The Surrogate") made from 64 used Tickle Me Elmo dolls that Heaton "trapped" on online auction while documenting every detail of her transactions with other eBay members. [13] The acquired Elmo dolls were eviscerated for their furry pelts and laughing electronics, all of which Heaton re-engineered into a coat that giggles and quivers when touched, like a surrogate lover. Filmmakers Shambhavi Kaul and Joshua Gibson collaborated with Heaton to document the various personalities of her process. [14]

In early 2004, Heaton moved to Switzerland, where she lived and worked until 2009 as a part-time innovation consultant for the Diabetes Care division of Roche Diagnostics. [15] During this time, she co-authored several patents related to methods of data visualization for continuous glucose data. [16] Heaton also taught herself analog electrical engineering and developed another body of work, "The Parallel Series". [17]

Heaton's 2015 exhibition, "Pollination" [18] [19] involved sculpture, electronics, perfume, and mixed media art. The exhibition included "The Beekeeper", a floor-to-ceiling kinetic sculpture that Heaton referred to as "an energetic self-portrait".

Personal life

Heaton lives in New York, NY. [20]

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Awards and grants

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References

  1. ↑ "Artfully Yours". NYMag.com.
  2. ↑ "The Parallel Series". Science Gallery. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Peano". alumni.media.mit.edu.
  4. ↑ Buntaine, Julia (September 18, 2015). "City Sights: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts". SciArt in America. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  5. ↑ Heaton, Kelly (June 2000). "Physical Pixels" (PDF).
  6. ↑ "The Physical Pixel Project". alumni.media.mit.edu.
  7. ↑ "Rhizome". Rhizome.
  8. ↑ "The Pool". Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  9. ↑ Johnson, Ken (February 8, 2002). "ART IN REVIEW; Kelly Heaton -- 'Reflection Loop'". The New York Times.
  10. ↑ "Upcoming Events - Duke Computer Science". www.cs.duke.edu.
  11. ↑ "Searching for the Soul of Elmo - Duke magazine". dukemagazine.duke.edu.
  12. ↑ "Threads of Consciousness: Kelly Heaton's Live Pelt @ Ronald Feldman Fine Art". NY Arts. Archived from the original on November 25, 2015. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  13. ↑ "Kelly Heaton". The Brooklyn Rail.
  14. ↑ "Ronald Feldman Gallery". Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  15. ↑ Heffernan, Margaret (May 5, 2015). Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   9781476784915 – via Google Books.
  16. ↑ "Kelly Heaton Inventions, Patents and Patent Applications - Justia Patents Search". patents.justia.com.
  17. ↑ "Kelly Heaton's "The Parallel Series" at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts". stendhal syndrome.
  18. ↑ "Kelly Heaton: Pollination - Ronald Feldman Gallery - Artsy". www.artsy.net.
  19. ↑ "Kelly Heaton: Pollination" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  20. 1 2 "The Parallel Series". Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.
  21. ↑ "Kelly Heaton | Ronald Feldman Gallery". Archived from the original on July 14, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
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