More than 200 people attended the opening of local art student Tommy Horning, Jr.’s first solo show on April 15. The exhibition is now on display at Studio 2091 in Cuyahoga Falls, curated by owner Amy Mothersbaugh Roos. In line with other unconventional shows at Studio 2091, Horning’s six sculptures are arranged in an imaginative setup. Several pieces are suspended from the ceiling; cotton clouds give the space a dream-like feeling. Painted on the walls are replicas of Horning’s original sketches and notes, narrating the creative process behind the pieces on display. Horning, an undergraduate at the University of Akron, says his work is heavily influenced by sci-fi movies (“Forbidden Planet”, “The Matrix”), fantasy novels by Piers Anthony (the Xanth novels) and Douglas Adams (“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”) and anime from Hayao Miyazaki. His sculpted portraits have childlike features, with large exaggerated eyes, inventive appendages and unrealistic proportions. It can take Horning anywhere from 30 to 50 hours or even more to complete a single piece. Even then, no piece is ever truly complete. “I always feel like I could have added this or tweaked that,” he said. It took about two months to complete everything for this opening. “I’ve lost many, many hours of sleep, but it was all worth it,” he said. Horning heated and hammered metal, soldering pieces together, electroformed via a chemical plating process and even cast some metal pieces from wax prototypes. The sculptures’ titles are as whimsical (and sometimes juvenile) as the rest of the exhibition’s theme: “King Nimbus,” “Shower Head Squiddy,” “Look! No Hands (Tricycle Guy)” and “Rocket Out of Uranus.” But Horning calls “Nimbus Chaser” the most successful. “It’s the only piece that I feel is really complete,” he said. “I don’t think there is anything else that I could do to that piece that wouldn’t just make it too busy.” Don’t try reading into Horning’s work too much. That isn’t his point. “I just want to make really cool objects that spark imagination that you might not tap in to every day,” he said. Horning wants his work to be about art, not pushing an agenda. “Quoting the great Sigmund Freud, ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.’ That’s how I pretty much feel about my art. It is what it is.” “Some Assembly Required” will run through the end of April. Studio 2091 (2091 Front St., Cuyahoga Falls, 330-858-4849; studio2091.com) is open Wednesday through Friday, 4 to 8 p.m. and Saturday, 1 to 6 p.m. Check it out for a seamless synthesis of childlike imagination and grown-up talent.   Written By Daena Urbanski