Wes Horn

“Using animal form and nature as inspiration, my sculpture is motivated by the power of the individual and the unity of all things. Manipulating scale and context of known natural items evokes a sense of new possibility and fascination with objects regularly encountered in the environment. My work most often incorporates seating elements or is created to form a seat or bench directly. The functionality of my work not only encourages physical interaction and tactile experience of the sculpture, but also allows for an opportunity for pause or reflection in the environment in which it is placed. In this way the viewer becomes the participant and engages their role as part of the landscape.

My affinity for the outdoor environments of my home state of California has, in great part, driven my desire to create artwork with the durability and variety to match its many outdoor climates and beyond. Many of my sculptures are created by fabricating reinforced rebar and ferro cement forms that are adapted to specific out-door and often functional applications, as well as high exposure and high traffic areas. My surface material of choice is high-fire ceramic relief tile and mosaic. Clay is my mother medium. Used extensively for modeling as well as sculpted or relief elements it serves as a fantastic agent for holding human expression through an elemental medium. Concrete and steel serve as a man-made counterbalance to clays purity, but share its expressive possibilities.  These materials, both very common to our everyday environments, provide me with the permanence, durability, vibrancy, and surface qualities that are so important to me in my work.

Combining materials and technique, viewer interaction, and a unique encounter with color, texture, light, shadow, mass, and shape, my work strives to evoke new dynamics between the man-made object and the environment it occupies. Its diversity as well as its humor and vibrancy express my optimism for the future and a new human dynamic with the environment for the Twenty-First Century.”

—Wes Horn