Roger Hiorns was born in Birmingham, England in 1975. He studied at Bournville College of Art, Birmingham and Goldsmiths’ College, London. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2009.

Much of Hiorns’s practice is about transformation, both of materials and spaces and, as such, of our perception of reality. Installations and sculpture present curious substances such as brain matter and altar stones in formations that render them unrecognisable. His approach is scientific in nature, experimenting with material reactions in order to expose their inherent qualities and to glean a reaction from the viewer. In his seminal installation Seizure (2008), he investigated the metamorphosis of mineral substances over time. The interior of a derelict council flat in southeast London was filled with liquid copper sulphate, which developed into startling, sapphire-blue crystal within three weeks, creating a fantastical cave in the formerly grim interior of the bedsit. This process of crystallisation is a motif of Hiorns’s work, for whom part of the appeal is that its growth is beyond his control.

In Discipline (2002), Hiorns applied the technique to thistles. When dipped into the copper-sulphate solution, the prickly flower heads are transformed into a hyper-real bouquet with an almost magical quality. The tension between the varying delicacies of the natural and mineral forms creates a visual puzzle for the eye.

Glossary

  • Installation

    An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.