Rocky Horton

Nashville Bedford Forrest

Nashville Bedford Forrest is a response to Nashville’s most recognizable (at least most notorious) public art work. While this sculpture is a privately owned work, its position along interstate 65 puts it forcibly in the public arena. Over the years, fruitless official discussions have centered on covering up or removing this sculpture and unofficial attempts have been made to deface or even destroy it. Nashville Bedford Forrest is neither an attempt a covering-up nor vandalizing the sculpture. This is a monument forced on the people of Nashville as a cultural symbol. Nashville Bedford Forrest is giving this sculpture to the people of Nashville to do with as they please. By re-creating the work, the public is given the opportunity to use the monument’s structure to produce individual expressive works. These collected works, when taken as whole, become a more accurate expression of the city of Nashville and its people.

This project is ongoing at nashvillebedfordforrest

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World's Largest Country Band

This is a community performance of Hank Williams’ song “I am so Lonesome I could cry” performed by people around the world, simultaneously.

This work is both a recognition of Nashivlle’s heritage and the loneliness caused by the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic. The collective act of performing brings us back together as a community, albeit at a distance. The performance is archived on Instagram at World's Largest Country Band

Nashville Artist-in-residence

This project was in response to my desire to be intentional about working in my city. For this period, I treated my residence as a residency, making work, doing community-based projects, having conversations, and researching my place of being.

I announced the residency in an ad in the Nashville Scene.

The rules of the residency:

1. The residency will take place November 25, 2018-November 25, 2019.

2. The residency will be in Nashville Tennessee

3. The residency is in recognition of my preexisting status as an artist and resident of Nashville.

4. The residency provides a context in which to create artworks that are a direct response to Nashville

5. The residency gives me permission to create projects that are not directly related to the aesthetics of my gallery-based work.

6. The residency creates a space to address my community directly rather than focusing on trends that lie outside that community.

7. The residency is a time set aside to consider my city, my community, and my role as an artist in relation to my site.

PSH (the last time you see his eyes)

Every scene in every movie in which Phillip Seymore Hoffman’s character dies.

PSH

Ecce Homo

Ecce Homo 1

Photo on wood pedestal

Ecce Homo 1

Photo on wood pedestal

Ecce Homo 2

Ecce Homo 2

Photo mounted to class. the figure has been resized to the height of the artist.

Fiori 2

48" x 96"

oil on canvas

2017

Fiori 1

48"x48"

oil on canvas

2017

more fiori

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Transparencies

Ideas for Monuments

18"x12"

Collage on Paper

WRESTLERS

18"x12"

Collage on Paper

2016

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All the Lights in My House

For his work, I remove all the lights from his home and install them in the exhibition space. I am without lights in my home for the duration of the exhibition. During this time, the only lights on in the gallery will be the ones from my home. This work is a manifestation of a desire to share, to sacrifice, and to act benevolently as well as address ideas of history, myth, and poetry in art.

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All The Songs God is Responsible For According to Grammy Awards Acceptance Speeches 1971-2012

Looped Video

Dimensions Variable

2012

All the songs....

Seraph

Looped Video
Dimensions variable
2014

Seraph

happybirthdaymerrychristmas (version 2)

paper party banner

approximately 60"x 30"

2014

happybirthdaymerrychristmas (version 1)

paper party banner

approx. 60"x30"

2014

thebuildingsweliveinoutliveus

children's blocks

approx. 48"x2"

2014

Clouds

oil on canvas

6"x6"

2012

100 rainbows

100 rainbows ( from suite of 100 drawings)
Rainbowbrush marker on paper
9 in x 20 in

Promise

Latex paint and hook
7'x 2'
2014 (in collaboration with Nick Doty)

Crying Clown (Ecce Koko)

Vintage paint-by-number painting, gold leaf frame, hidden mechanics, saline*
16 in x 12 in
2012
*This painting is hung on the wall and engineered to cry tears

Pray Without Ceasing

Video
dimensions variable
2010
*Nashville area protestant Christian church leaders praying on behalf of the Nashville contemporary art scene. The video documentation of the project is then edited into a continuous loop.