Roger Hiorns (1975, Birmingham, United Kingdom) is an artist whose sculptures investigate material and form in the broadest sense. In his comprising installation 'Seizure' (2008) he filled an apartment in London ready for demolition, with a copper sulphate solution, which through chemical process resulted in an interior fully covered with gleaming blue crystal formations. The visitors could do nothing but destroy the crystals on the floor by walking over them. Hiorns work thus refers to themselves: to the material of which they consist, to the form they have and to the tension that occurs between them. Hiorns: 'The works are successful if they are self-contained and need nothing else. They exist by their own language.'
He uses processes in which he himself has no influence on the eventual appearance of the work. A characteristic for Hiorns' working method is the combination of two basic elements, which are simultaneously opposite and supplementing each other: ceramic pots with moving foam, metal with fire, a car engine with growing crystals, steel with perfume, even glass fiber with brain matter. The relation between the movable and the immovable, the living and the dead yields an undeniable tension in his work. Like a modern-day alchemist Hiorns transforms the objects and materials to give them a new function and meaning.
Roger Hiorns studied at Goldsmiths College in London. Some of solo exhibitions include Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2019 & 2016), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2017), Rudolfinum Gallery, Prague (2015), Corvi-Mora, London, (2015), Corvi-Mora, London, (2015), Luhring Augustine, New York (2014), The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, (2013), MIMA, Middlesbrough (2012), Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2010), The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2010), the Tate Britain, London (2010), the Camden Arts Centre, London (2007) and the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2003).
In 2009 he was nominated for the Turner Prize with his installation 'Seizure', commissioned by Artangel. Hiorns also participated in several group exhibitions amongst others at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2019), Keramiekmuseum Princessehof, Leeuwarden (2017), Hayward Gallery, London (2015), Colombus Museum of Art in Ohio, Ohio (2014), Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2014), Taipei Biennial, Taipei (2014), The National Gallery, London (2014), 55th Venice Biennale, Venice (2013), Marrakech Biennale 4th Biennale, Marrakech (2012) CAPC Musée d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux (2011) and many other.