Ajax's Tina Horn connects the skies of two worlds

Tina Horn is in Canada to mature her artistic voice. The 26 year-old native of New Zealand has been living with her émigré parents in Ajax for the past year churning out acrylic paintings on canvas, featuring the Canadian landscape, and has assembled enough work to put them together with some landscapes from her native land to warrant a show she has titled, Two Worlds – One Sky at the Durham West Arts Centre in the library at Greenwood in North Pickering, running from July 24th to September 5th.

Horn is largely self-taught, but comes from a life-long affinity for visual expression. Both of her parents are in the applied visual arts field, her mom a photographer and her father an architect. And Tina has always excelled at visual arts, starting with crafts and then painting in public and high school – and returning to fine arts, in spite of an art teacher who shut here down for the years directly after her formal education with some unhelpful criticism of her formative works. She worked at various jobs until finally the pressure from people asking for commissions plus her inner need to express herself resulted in her focusing on abstract and figurative works that explored frustrations, disappointments and inspirations in her life up until the move to Canada.

Living in Durham Region and travelling in Quebec gave her a more positive perspective and Horn plunged into the execution of the present and ongoing series of landscapes. They are bright and engaging with dramatic black outlining of key elements – a look inspired by graffiti art she saw in the streets of hometown Wellington.

When her work visa expires, Tina will return to Wellington which she describes as having a vibrant emerging art scene where she intends on taking classes to learn new techniques, allow herself the freedom of more experimentation and begin the crucial networking that artists must pursue to fashion a successful career.

Horn’s work will on display at the Greenwood Library, 3540 Westney Road North for six weeks beginning on July 24th. For further information about the show and the artist, you can contact her at tinahorn@gmail.com or see her work on Facebook by searching I am Tina Horn – Art Works.