Artist Spotlight: James Horan





I make sculpture that is purely about aesthetics too. Taking a block of stone and transforming it into a figure that is compositionally balanced. This balance comes at the expense of realism through distortions of proportion and exaggerated movement. Every few years I get focused on a more serious theme. Usually a social commentary idea, often dark humored. These narrative ideas overwhelm my practice for six to twelve months, culminating in an exhibition. Afterwards, I usually make a few very simple compositional pieces again. It seems to be cyclical. The same happens with scale. I will long to make a big sculpture, once I do, I relish making smaller work again. For now I have abandoned very small work. I am curating a sculpture exhibition due to open at the end of May and also currently designing for a large private commission for a garden which I hope will take up most of the summer.


The Icarus legend has inspired several of my sculptures since around 2006, I think. The most recent one was simply called “Icarus,” an Irish limestone piece I completed in Dec 2018. This piece really shows the variety of finish available in the stone. Polished, the stone turns almost black. Rough tooling shows a great texture and lighter color. It is very satisfying to create a sculpture with minimal contact with the base/ground. Aiming to achieve weightlessness and movement takes a little planning. I drilled the holes for the dowel pins before starting to carve the sculpture. I felt the piece would be too delicate to drill once completed. “Icarus” required a lot of drilling to get the negative spaces right (It’s hard to know if the drill or the chisel is best sometimes). I also began to add extra elements to sculpture. I first did this after returning from Pilgrim Firs with some jade!

James Horan www.jameshoransculpture.com