Primary Medium

Sculpture

Address

206 DUPONT ST
Brooklyn, 11222

Artist Statement

Brooklyn-based sculptor Gabrielle Shelton creates beautiful yet strict, fabricated, and machined sculptures as stairs and dystopian metal landscapes created in bronze, steel, and aluminum. Her cityscape sculptures use the remnants from her architectural work as amulets or acknowledgments of the fact that they were left behind while the rest of their stock went off to become something fabulous; for someone great. The parts from which she builds indicate repetitive building structures reflective of her two-decade grind in metalwork. Shelton is particularly obsessed with the stair form. The love affair began during her childhood as she grew up playing around the endless hidden stairs in her neighborhood in Los Angeles. Throughout her career, Shelton has built massive functional stairs and railings upwards of 11 runs and five stories. Her sculptural stairs stack and invert; some are highly polished, while others are raw and industrial. Shelton explores the theory of the conceptual stair with the praxis of functional stairs and the relationship between functional and nonfunctional. Stairs have always been an essential part of Gabrielle’s vocabulary. Her decades in the construction industry taught her the techniques and engineering aspects of functional stair building so that she can now create narratives free of the burden of codes, contractors, and clients.

Links

Website: http://www.sheltonstudiosinc.com
Instagram: @gabriellesheltonsculpture