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

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.

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. Heaton went on to study at the MIT Media Lab and graduated with a MS from MIT in 2000.

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. 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.

Career

In the early 2000s, Heaton developed a reputation for complex, obsessive and often humorous installations involving technology. 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. 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.

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. In 2003, Heaton's installation "Live Pelt" premiered at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York City. 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. 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.

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. During this time, she co-authored several patents related to methods of data visualization for continuous glucose data. Heaton also taught herself analog electrical engineering and developed another body of work, "The Parallel Series".

Heaton's 2015 exhibition, "Pollination" 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".

A self-taught perfumer, Heaton has created several fragrances, including "Smells Like Weeds (The Queen of Hungry Spirits)", a perfume made using bee-friendly plants; and "Smells Like Money (Hungry Spirits)", a perfume extracted from hundreds of dollar bills using the labor-intensive method of cold enfleurage.

In 2014, Heaton founded The Virginia Perfume Company to create authentic, small-batch perfumes based on old-world techniques.

Personal life

Heaton lives in Virginia with her husband and stepchildren.

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Awards and grants