Timothy Horn
With a fondness for using unusual materials – such as blown-glass, rubber, and rock sugar – Australian-born artist Timothy Horn is known for creating large-scale sculptures that challenge viewers to find the meeting point between the natural and constructed worlds. Inspired by decorative arts and engravings from European baroque and rococo, as well as by 19th century studies of organic forms including lichen, coral and seaweed, Horn’s work conveys fantasy and ornament but is underpinned by craftsmanship and concept.
For his bejeweled wall pieces, Horn melds the organic and the artificial into a delicate silhouette by drafting a complex pattern and using grafted imagery of natural forms. A tree-like structure is constructed in wax and then cast in bronze and nickel-plated. Lustrous, large pearls fabricated from mirrored blown glass are the final baroque touch.
Other examples of Horn’s oeuvre to be displayed at Lux are his 18th-century wall sconces made of transparent rubber, as well as a Cinderella-like carriage and a 300-pound chandelier both encrusted in honey-colored, crystallized rock sugar. The sugar-gilded chandelier and carriage were featured in an exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco that referenced the rags-to-riches life of Alma Spreckels, widow of millionaire sugar baron Adolph Spreckels, who was brother of real estate magnate John D. Spreckels, one of San Diego’s founding entrepreneurs.
A graduate of Victorian College of the Arts and Australian National University, Horn received his MFA from Massachusetts College of Art. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the Museum of Arts & Design and at the Armory Art Show in New York, Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. He has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and LEF New England. Residencies include the British Academy in Rome, Yaddo in upstate New York, the Fine Art Works Center in Provincetown and RAIR in New Mexico.
Solo Exhibitions thru 1990
- 2010
- Timothy Horn, Lux Art Institute, Encinitas, CA
- 2009
- Medusa, LAND/ART 09, Santa Fe, NM
- 2008
- Medusa, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
- Bitter/Suite, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA
- 2006
- Villa Medusa, Hosfelt, Gallery, New York, NY
- (in)discrete objects, Sub-Urban Series, Knoxville Museum of Art, TN
- 2005
- Difficult to Swallow, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- 2003
- Water-Sports, Jam Factory, Adelaide, Australia Cinderella Complex, Melbourne Town Hall Art Space, Melbourne, Australia
- 2002
- Water-Sports, Craft ACT, Canberra, Australia
- 2001
- Glory Box, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane, Australia Cinderella Complex, Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, Australia
- 1995
- Concert, Kirkcaldy Davies Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- 1992
- Ménage à trois, City Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
- 1989
- Water Organ, Winter Folly, City Gallery. Melbourne, Australia
Group Exhibitions thru 1990
- 2010
- Selected Works from the UniSA Samstag Collection, Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, Hawke Building, UniSA, Australia
- GlassWear, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Salem, NC
- Julie Heffernan/Timothy Horn, The Art Show, Park Avenue Armory (with PPOW Gallery), New York, NY
- Dallas Art Fair (with James Kelly Contemporary), Dallas, TX
- Tour de Force: In case of Emergency, Break Glass, Artisan, Brisbane, Australia
- 2009
- Cabinet of Curiosities, Dunedin Arts Center, Dunedin, FL
- Pulse Contemporary Art Fair, Miami, FL
- The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent Was a Summer in San Francisco, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- Reinventions, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
- New Work, Hosfelt Gallery, New York, NY
- Here & There, LAND/ART 09, 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM
- GlassWear, Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
Venues included Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL; Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christie, TX; Glazen Huis Vlaams Centrum voor Hedendaagse Glaskunstk, Lommel, Belgium
- 2008
- In Pursuit of Beauty, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA
- Aqua Wynwood Art Fair, Miami, FL
- Optimism, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
- FLux, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM
- GlassWear, Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, Germany
- 2007
- Andy and Oz, Parallel Visions, Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA
- Aqua Wynwood Art Fair, Miami, FL GlassWear, Glass Pavilion, Toledo Museum of Art, OH
- Jellyfish - Nature Inspires Art, National Maritime Museum, Sydney, Australia
- RAiR 40th Anniversary Exhibition, Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM
- ARCO, Arte Contemporaneo, Feria de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- The Art and Artifice of Science, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM
- 2006
- Flicker, Albany University Art Museum, Albany, NY
- Rapture is a Cool Place, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
- Mass 3D, Boston Sculptors Gallery, Boston, MA
- Fine Arts Work Center Fellows, Provincetown Art Association Museum, Provincetown, MA
- Preview, Hosfelt Gallery, New York, NY
- 2005
- Ornamentation: The Art of Desire, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
- Academici, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; British Academy, Rome, Italy
- Kindle and Swag, QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
- 2004
- Kindle and Swag, Art Museum of University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
- MFA Thesis Exhibition, Bakala Gallery, MassArt, Boston, MA
- Walk This Way, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, QLD, Australia
- 2003
- Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture, Grounds for Sculpture, International Sculpture Center, Hamilton, NJ
- Beautiful Rebellion, Adams House Art Space, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
- 2002
- Gulliver’s Travels, CAST, Hobart, Tasmania, Ivan Doherty Gallery Sydney, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, IMA Brisbane, CACSA, Adelaide, PICA, Perth
- Less is More, Less is a Bore, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
- 2001
- National Sculpture Prize, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
- Glow, Object Gallery, Customs House, Customs House, Sydney, Australia
- Vanessa Buemi and Timothy Horn, Object Gallery, Customs House, Sydney, Australia
- 2000
- SpringART, SpringOUT Festival, Sound Screen Archives, Canberra, Australia
- GAS Conference, LIU, Brooklyn, NY
- 1999
- Glass, Essentially Canberra, Glass Festival Exhibition, Hsinchu Municipal Centre, Taiwan; La Salle College of the Arts SIA, Singapore
- Glass, Essentially Canberra, Object Gallery, Customs House, Sydney, Australia
- RFC Glass Prize, Touring Exhibition, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, Wagga Wagga
- Fill This Space, Collaborative Installation, Next Wave Festival, North Melbourne Town Hall Hotel, North Melbourne, Australia
- 1998
- Venezia Aperto Vetro 1998, L’Instituto Statale D’Arte, Venice, Italy
- RFC Glass Prize, Touring Exhibition, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane
- 1997
- Site and Scale, Yarra Sculpture Space, Abbotsford, Melbourne, Australia
- 1996
- Love: at the Carlisle Street Motel, Carlisle Street Motel, St. Kilda, Australia
- 1995
- Blundstone Traveling Fellowship, Touring Exhibition, Launceston, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane
- 1991
- Gasworks Sculpture Exhibition, Southgate, Melbourne, Australia