HORNery QUERY

Contemporary Bull & Horn Symbolism Paintings, (2016–ongoing)

Intro

This ongoing series explores the psychological power of symbols through the recurring motif of horns and bull imagery. Beginning in 2016 with an anatomical study that unexpectedly resonated, the work evolved into a sustained meditation on how we project meaning onto archetypal forms – the horn as symbol of power, aggression, fertility, protection, perfection and/or transformation.

An Invitation

This is an invitation to participate rather than observe—to let symbols work on you the way they’ve worked on me, year after year, one painting at a time.

Technique & Materials

Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, I embrace white space as an active element, building layers that reveal and conceal in equal measure. Cardboard elements occasionally interrupt the painted surface, adding physical dimension to psychological depth. The aesthetic sits between expressionism and the surreal, where recognizable forms dissolve into ambiguity.

Hidden Layers & Meaning

Beneath visible layers lie hidden marks and imagery – deliberate traces that may or may not surface. I’m less interested in dictating meaning than in creating spark points for the viewer’s own associations. Each painting becomes a mirror: what you see in the horns, in the negative space, in the buried and the revealed, is as much about your interior landscape as mine.

Why Horns? Why Bulls?

It started accidentally in 2016—an anatomical study that wouldn’t leave me alone. The horn kept appearing, insisting on further investigation. Not as decoration. As a question.

Horns carry contradictory meanings: aggression and protection, power and vulnerability, the masculine and the fertile. Bulls represent raw force, but also sacrifice and transformation across cultures. These aren’t arbitrary choices—they’re forms loaded with centuries of human projection.

I’m less interested in what these symbols “mean” universally and more curious about what they trigger individually. The horn is a Rorschach test. Your response tells a story about your interior landscape, your associations, your buried narratives.

That’s why this series remains ongoing. The questions multiply rather than resolve.