Biography

Peter Shelton's sculptural practice encompasses a diverse range of themes, approaches, and media. Creating both large-scale installations and modest objects that may be held in the hand, Shelton draws from a vocabulary both figural and abstract, anatomical and architectural. Born in Troy, Ohio, his family moved to Tempe, Arizona when Shelton was a young child. After receiving his BA from Pomona College in Southern California in 1973, he returned to Troy where he attended the Hobart Brothers School of Welding Technology and worked as a welder for several years. Shelton eventually returned to Southern California and received his MFA from UCLA in 1979. While at UCLA, he began creating ambitious installations combining recognizable elements with highly abstract forms. These pieces were often layered and carefully organized in space--visual strategies that became an essential feature of Shelton's art. In the 1980s and 1990s, Shelton concurrently produced both large-scale environments and more modest figurative pieces. Though his career has had no straightforward linear development, reference to the human form unites all of Shelton's work. A skilled craftsman, Shelton's materials have included steel, bronze, cloth, cement, wood, paper, and fiberglass. In addition, he has used water in several sculptural projects. The thingsgetwet series featured bronze objects, such as a chair or stack of books, with flowing water constantly bathing their surfaces. Shelton currently resides in Southern California.