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Mastery in Metal – Dion Horstmans
Driven by a seemingly limitless creative energy, Dion Horstmans is an artist whose practice explores and redefines the boundaries of sculpture through experimentation with form and shadow. Born in New Zealand, having spent his early childhood in the Cook Islands and now based in Sydney’s Bondi – where he undertakes private, commercial and public commissions – his life and work are testament to the power of single-mindedly pursuing an artistic vision.
Growing up in the remote South Pacific region before moving to Auckland in his early teens, Dion spent his early years running around chasing chickens, pigs and anything else he could get his hands on. As one of four kids raised by a single mother, living on welfare and with a sister suffering from cancer, his childhood was far from indulgent.
“I missed out on all the early years of school. I could climb a coconut tree, catch and gut a fish, but I couldn’t add for shit,” says Dion. He struggled at school and considered himself an outcast as well as disruptive – behaviours that would later result in an ADHD diagnosis. “I hid in the art rooms at school. I found solace in creating worlds,” he says. It was during this formative time that Dion realised his creative ability as a form of escape. He fell in love with colour and tribal patterns, and his mind gradually became imbued with a fierce creativity and an innovative, unrestrained style of thinking that would go onto influence his practice.
Dion had originally pursued film. “I snuck into the local film theatre and watched Bruce Lee films, sitting on the dirt under the trestled seating. Life there was bright and warm,” he recalls. Eventually, however, the pull of his boundless imagination was so strong that he abandoned a successful career in the film industry to commit to a full-time contemporary art practice as a sculptor in 2006.
Working prolifically ever since, Dion’s style is dynamic, linear and minimal. His artistic approach stems from his innate creative impulse, forged by observing the primal power of nature in his native New Zealand. Predominantly using metal, he draws influence from the geometry of trees and landscapes.
After almost 15 years exhibiting in the gallery system, Dion’s work now features in solo exhibitions across Australia and Asia, and he has completed major commercial commissions and public artworks included in the Vivid Sydney festival, ‘Sculpture by the Sea’ and ‘Artisans in the Park’ exhibitions, as well as in the Sydney Botanical Gardens and Melbourne BMW on Kings Way, which comprised six wall-mounted sculptures that play with ideas of speed and motion.
His daring three-dimensional, angular works interact with light, transforming their material configurations to extend beyond their tangible forms. Dion approaches each piece through dialogue with tribal motifs, bold shapes and colour while exploring themes of shadow, geometry and form, employing a deliberate use of lines to interact with light. “I begin every sculpture from the shadows inspired by my last, so that my body of work is a continuous interlocking chain,” says Dion.
His latest public sculpture commissions include a work in Sydney’s Ryde Park for Genesis and Urban Art Projects (UAP), Elektromaster for Central Park in Sydney, Super Sonic in Melbourne’s Collins Square with Hassell and Walker Corporation and Prismatic for Brisbane’s Ibis Hotel. Dion’s studio process is intuitive as well as meticulous and time consuming. He works unaccompanied, often on several sculptures simultaneously, and to generate one small body of work can take up to 100 hours of cutting, welding and filing. Working without preparatory sketches, he “draws” in three dimensions, his innate understanding of form ensuring there is a unity between his works and their surroundings.
“I don’t really need motivating. I’m highly motivated. I am fearful of running out of time and equally as excited about exploring and creating new things.”
The actual process starts in the dark. Shadows are cast and drawn, elongated, stretched and marked down one-dimensionally on a steel table top, then built up from the cast footprint,” Dion explains. “The building – bringing space, volume and the sense of motion – this part I can’t explain, it’s the thing in me that I intrinsically know.”
Presently working towards a solo show, Dion needs no outside encouragement – creating is the drive. “I don’t really need motivating. I’m highly motivated. I am fearful of running out of time and equally as excited about exploring and creating new things,” he says. “Each work influences the next. There is so much to look at, to take inspiration from.”
The journey from self-described disruptive kid to lauded and prolific sculptor, who has been exhibiting professionally since 1995, is not immediately obvious, but Dion’s passion and drive make it seem inevitable. Knowing no bounds when it comes to creativity and expression, he’s a master of both metal and the art of following a dream and forging it into reality.
