The Sandpit #2
September 21, 2017
Being a draftsman, painter, printmaker, and seen as one of the pioneers of the photorealist art movement, Ian Hornak wore many hats in his artistic career. Although he was invested in creating beautiful life-like surfaces in his work, the purpose went beyond that. He once stated, “My idea of a perfect surrealist painting is one in which every detail is perfectly realistic, yet filled with a surrealistic, dreamlike mood. And the viewer himself can’t understand why that mood exists, because there are no dripping watches or grotesque shapes as reference points. That is what I am after: the mood which is apart from everyday life, the type of mood that one experiences at very special moments.” This pursuit for a feeling, for the creation of an emotional tone in a painting is seen as a common thread among his career and be seen through years of work.
Sandlot #2, a scene of a quiet, quaint sand lot, brings a specific tenderness to the sandy landscape through Hornak’s delicate technical sensibility as a draftsman. As a viewer you see this empty, black and white scene created through thoughtful marks etched onto a metal plate, transferred through the process of intaglio printmaking. This process lends itself to creating a quiet, poignant scene, due to the amount of focus and decisiveness it takes to create a craftful etching. Hornak took a traditional process and added a special touch which is his hand, exhibiting the beauty in fragility. Maybe even more importantly, Hornak shows the beauty in something one would often find mundane, or ordinary, such as a pit of sand.
Text by Emily Lane Borden