Olivia SHelton

Bio

Olivia Shelton (she/her) is a neon tube bender and artist based in Kansas City, Missouri. Born and raised in the Kansas City area, Olivia’s career in neon began in 2020 when she began apprenticing under her father, Randy Steinmetz, a neon tube bender with a career of 40+ years. Olivia makes neon full time with her brother and father at Element Ten, a neon studio in the 18th and Vine District of Kansas City. Olivia’s work explores themes of color, play, and experiencing memory through tactile objects.

Artist statement

I am fascinated with the idea that tactile objects are a direct connection to our past, and similarly that the things I make now connect me to the future. In my own work, I often repair decades-old neon. At some point in the past, a craftsperson labored over each bend, their marks lovingly preserved on the glass that I now hold in my hands. Stretching Into Infinity explores this idea of time, memory, and object, and is titled after an Emily Bronte poem of a similar theme.

Our pasts influence the way we view our futures, and often our present reality gets muddled in the process. By placing an old window in front of the neon, the light and color bounce and blend to create a more complex, confusing image than the neon alone could achieve. The artwork contains pieces of neon created by me, as well as two neon pieces made by my father in the 1980s, an homage to how ingrained the craft was in my upbringing.