Gwen 🦋🌸

cast iron, low-fire clay, vermiculite, coconut coir, steel hardware

A set of my sand molds being poured in iron - each mold contains a cavity shaped after a component of an articulated dressmaker’s form, with the molten iron taking the shape of the original component.

This long-term project is an ongoing goal of my three year residency at Sloss Metal Arts.

WIP at Sloss Furnaces National Landmark

Works in progress at Sloss Furnaces: a series of dressmaker’s forms, modified and cast in iron to emulate the perforated flasks used in historical bronze bell-making to contain the clay mold.

Sanitary·Standard, 2023, cast bronze & battery pump

This eye wash station imagines a world where implicit biases can be absolved in a brief act of public ablution.

from my MFA thesis “Operating Assumptions” at Southern Illinois University’s Surplus Gallery, March 2024

Capacity 1, 2022, cast iron & steel

Capacity 1 challenges preconceptions of gender as amalgamations of abstract barriers - simultaneously protective and claustrophobic - that impede personal growth and vulnerability.

from my MFA thesis at Southern Illinois University’s Surplus Gallery, March 2024

Gwen L Kelling, Oil Change, 2022, cast iron, motor oil & found objects

This piece likens my weekly estrodiol shot, a sesame oil suspension administered by my partner Ayla, to routine automotive maintenance.

from my MFA thesis at Southern Illinois University’s Surplus Gallery, March 2024

Gwen L Kelling, Cure Time, 2021, bronze, steel and found objects

This sculpture incorporates a cobbler’s anvil to visualize the dichotomy of self-expression and self-preservation as I “do my nails”.

from my MFA thesis at Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Surplus Gallery in March 2024

I’d love to be a part of this initiative! 🌸

putting some art on the walls of this new space 🦋