Steven Claydon

Steven Claydon is concerned with anachronisms, fictional narratives and the ‘might have been’ of history. His mixed media sculptural work often features archetypal forms from the history of art, which he turns into something utterly unexpected by juxtaposing them with visually incongruous elements. His strategy of display conveys a sense of contradiction and irony through the casual connection of imagery and materials, and thus undermines dominant chronologies. In A Lark Descending (Preparations for Leda) (2008), a golden bust of Zeus emerging from a blue plastic bag and a steel I-beam remade in ceramic, exist alongside a coiled yellow hose and a modest piece of plywood. In an absurd gesture, the two plinths on which the objects are placed elevate them to the status of relics, and their alchemical conversion into the monumental and immortal things is echoed by the work’s reference to the mythical transformation of Zeus into a swan.