Timothy Horn’s Metallic Sculptures Draw Inspiration from Jewelry and Nature
The artist relies on bronze and glass to make his eye-catching works of art.
Tree of Heaven 7, nickel-plated bronze and mirrored blown glass, price upon request, timothyhorn.net. / Courtesy photo
Timothy Horn may be an accomplished sculptor now (see: his commissioned pieces for Dior), but it was actually metalsmithing that first captivated him as an art student in the 1980s. “After the first year [of art school], I found the scale and physicality of sculpture a more comfortable fit, and switched departments,” the Australia native says. “But I maintained a love for the decorative and ornamental.”
Horn’s interest in metals stuck with him, too. Though he’s experimented with various media throughout his career—which has taken him across the ocean from Melbourne to Boston to his current home base in Provincetown—his penchant for metallics remains a constant in his work. Most recently, it’s resurfaced in his “Tree of Heaven” series, which reflects his interest in the intersection of manmade and organic forms. The results are as stunning as they are surreal: Drawing inspiration from historical jewelry and nature studies on subjects such as lichen and coral, Horn’s Tree of Heaven 7 seems to sprout from the wall, growing bronze limbs before our very eyes.
Horn says he weaves a narrative within each of his pieces. “I want my audience to feel like I’m taking them on a journey,” he says. “I don’t possess the literary eloquence of a novelist, but in many ways I feel like the work I’ve made collectively forms a visual novel.”
