Nick Hornby

Exhibitions and events:
Reverse Engineering

Nick Hornby’s work is the physical meeting of historical critique and digital technology; behind hand-crafted sculptures of marble, resin or bronze are computer-generated models, expanding shapes, silhouettes and shadows into manifest examples of the collusion between disparate ideas.

Hornby studied at Slade School of Art and Chelsea College of Art. His recent presentations include CASS Sculpture Foundation, The Museum of Arts and Design New York, Mediations Poznan, Tate Britain, Eyebem New York, Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Leighton House London, Southbank Centre London. He was awarded the Clifford Chance Sculpture Prize and was shortlisted as for the Mark Tanner Sculpture Prize.

Hornby’s Masks point to a fabled meeting of 1907 between Matisse and Picasso in which a collection of African masks inspired the invention of Cubism only weeks later. This story encapsulates the familiar grand narratives of art history: the myth of genius, inspiration, otherness, but also reflects on the necessary subtleties and gaps between them. Hornby replicates these broad strokes with precision and control: starting with a Matisse gouache, he manipulates the inherited form to arrive at a plausible back-story.

 
 

Nick Hornby, Mask (Picasso ii), 2016
sculpture, marble resin, paint, lacquer, 50x50x25cm
HOR023

 
 

Nick Hornby, Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief (Jane Austen), 2015
sculpture, marble resin composite, 61x28x31cm
HOR017

 
 

Nick Hornby, Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door (Coco Chanel), 2016
sculpture, marble resin composite, 90x90x90cm
installation view
HOR032

 
 

Nick Hornby, Tree Plinth Series No1, or Shadows, small spaces, old furniture (Kevin McCloud), 2016
sculpture, bronze, 255x60x90cm
series view
HOR033

 
 

Nick Hornby, 6° takes One Minute, 2013-14
sculpture, marble resin, 90x29x19cm
HOR029

In this series, Hornby digitally manipulated Matisse’s The Backs (1909-31) in order to extrapolate hypothetical future iterations beyond Matisse’s works, which are themselves a progression further and further into abstraction.

 
 

Nick Hornby, Back Toards Flat, 2013
print, c-type print, 9*84x51cm, 9*89x57cm
installation view, Churner and Churner Gallery, New York
HOR002

 
 

Nick Hornby, The Present Is Just a Point, 2013
marble resin composite, aluminum, 260x200x114cm
HOR014

 
 

Nick Hornby, My Nose Grows Now, 2013
sculpture, bronze, steel frame, 25x84x18cm, 90x51x51cm
HOR007

 
 

Nick Hornby, Bird God Drone, 2013
sculpture, epoxy resin compound, paint, lacquer, 366x183x91cm (excluding plinth)
HOR003

 
 

Nick Hornby, We turn the Cube and it twists us (Erno Rubik), 2010
sculpture, Marble resin composite, 88.5x141.6 x71cm
installation view
HOR020

 
 

Nick Hornby, Walking in Our Mind, 2009
sculpture, plaster figure, 427x427x427cm
installation view, Southbank Centre, London
HOR019

 
 

Nick Hornby, From Thinking to Dreaming, 2009
sculpture, jesmonite, 152x152x152cm
HOR004

 
 

Nick Hornby, Tell Tale Heart, 2008
sculpture, timber, paint, 274x274x660cm
installation view, Camley Street Natural Park, London
HOR012