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Gallery Talk

10 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 28

Hear Robyn Horn discuss her work and progression from large-scale wooden sculpture to abstract painting

Geometric Intersections:

Sculpture and Paintings

Robyn Hutcheson Horn is a full-time, self-employed sculptor, artist and native-born Arkansan whose work has drawn regional and national recognition and is shown in galleries throughout the United States. Her work will be on display at the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas from Nov. 12-Feb. 12.

The exhibition will feature pieces of wood sculpture and examples of abstract art, one of Horn’s newest areas of interest.

Horn, who was named an Arkansas Living Treasure by the Department of Arkansas Natural Heritage in 2008, says she has found herself drawn more to two-dimensional art in the last few years. “I am at the point in my career where I am considering what to do when I can no longer lift a chunk of wood to transform it into a sculpture,” the artist says.

The process has smoother than she imagined. “I remember when I was in college standing in front of a canvas trying to figure out what to paint. Because of the progress that I have made in the last 25 years in making forms out of wood and metal, I have developed an aesthetic when I had none back then. There are numerous things that relate from one medium to the other, mostly the concepts of geometry, line, planes, volume and texture,” she says.

“The experimentation I have enjoyed with the painting has been very liberating. I have specifically been intrigued by the concept of moving within a single work from representational into the abstract. I have always been interested in stones and their shapes and tones, and in the last few years, I have developed a fondness for rust. The geometry of industrial machinery parts fits right in with the ‘representational into abstract’ concept. I have also been working with the idea of combining sketching and painting. Again contrast is interesting to me, combining precise lines with unrestrained ones.”

Horn’s career as a wood artist began in 1983 when her brother-in-law, Sam Horn, returned from a lathe-turning workshop at the Arrowmont School for Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tenn. With his tutoring, she began turning vessels, and three years later, her forms evolved from utilitarian bowl forms into thick-walled semi-spherical forms she called her “geode series.”

Horn explores her work in a series of forms that appear to go through a transformation process as they proceed. In 1990, she began her “gemstone” series where the geode was faceted. In 1994, Horn was exploring thick, doughnut-like forms which she called her “millstone” series – inspired by the flat, circular, and grooved grinding stones used in 19th-century flour mills – and introduced her “stepping stone” series. In 1998, the artist’s work blossomed and took on several new directions. Simultaneously, she began to create her “monostone” and “standing stone” series. These are monolithic forms inspired by Olmec sculpture of Mesoamerica and tend to be slab-like where the silhouette and piercing of holes are important, suggesting an interest in pure sculptural forms. At the same time, Horn introduced her “relationship” and “spiral” series of paired freestanding forms where the components complement each other and where rusted metal was introduced.

Horn’s work is regularly illustrated in craft and woodworking magazines. Horn is the founder and first president of the Collectors of Wood Art, an organization set up in 1997 for the purpose of fostering interest in wood art. Awards include a Hendrix Odyssey Award in Artistic Creativity and a Craft Organization Development Association Award for Leadership, Creative Thinking and Outstanding Service.