Cloud-Mane Horse: Can Air Have Weight? A Year of the Horse Studio Edit

Cloud-Mane Horse

A Year of the Horse sculpture set in stainless steel and crystal

Cloud-Mane Horse began with a question that is either poetic or deeply impractical, depending on your mood: can air have weight? I wanted to sculpt something that feels like it’s lifting off, not charging. So I started with the classic rearing horse pose we know from imperial portraits and statues, then pushed it toward optimism instead of dominance.

The mane is the main culprit. It swells into looping cumulus forms, like a storm that got lost and decided to live in a horse’s hair. The body stays in my rounded, modular language so the energy reads as rise rather than aggression. Stainless steel should not float, but this one tries.

Stainless steel: the room joins the artwork

The stainless steel edition has a mirror skin that recruits whatever is around it. The space. The light. The people who swear they are “just looking” and then end up orbiting the piece like curious moons.

Stand near it and your reflection slides across the surface until you are part of the sculpture. Walk around it and the rhythms start syncing up: hoof answers shoulder, tail answers mane. The curves rhyme until the figure feels like one continuous breath that’s about to leave the plinth.

I love the paradox here. Impermanence is fixed inside a material made to endure. Clouds shift and vanish. Steel holds. Between those two truths the work finds its charge.

This 40 cm studio edition is also a study for a future public version, where the actual sky can become the light source that activates it.

YEAR: 2025
MATERIAL: Stainless Steel
SIZE: 40 cm (H) × 16 cm (W) × 26 cm (D)
EDITION: 12 + 1 AP

Crystal editions: light made solid

Alongside the steel piece, I created crystal editions in three colourways to celebrate the Year of the Horse in a more luminous, giftable format. In crystal, Cloud-Mane Horse becomes an entirely different creature. Still rearing, still climbing, but now it feels like the sculpture is built out of captured light.

Crystal has this lovely ability to look substantial and weightless at the same time, which brings me right back to that original question about air having weight. In this material the horse reads as a symbol for new ventures, upward progress, and the kind of prosperity that comes from movement rather than luck.

Cloud-Mane Horse (Amber-Green)

This version leans into a warm, earthy glow with green undertones, like sunlight caught in foliage. It carries that sense of forward motion and “let’s go” energy, while still feeling calm and elegant on a shelf or desk.

Cloud-Mane Horse is sculpted to evoke upward momentum that resonates with both Western and Eastern sensibilities. The rearing pose embodies prosperity and forward motion, while the cloud-mane becomes a symbol of rising aspirations and new opportunities as the Lunar New Year approaches.

YEAR: 2025
MATERIAL: Crystal (amber-green mix)
SIZE: 17 cm (H) × 12 cm (W) × 6 cm (D)
EDITION: 50 + 1 AP

Cloud-Mane Horse (Yellow)

Yellow is pure optimism. It reads like daylight, celebration, and a small personal reminder to keep moving forward even when you are unsure what the next hill looks like. In this colour, the horse feels especially buoyant, like it’s mid-leap.

YEAR: 2025
MATERIAL: Crystal (yellow)
SIZE: 17 cm (H) × 12 cm (W) × 6 cm (D)
EDITION: 50 + 1 AP

Cloud-Mane Horse (Pink)

Pink turns the piece playful and slightly cheeky, which I always enjoy. It softens the heroic rearing pose into something more human: ambition with warmth, strength without the shouting. Also, it just looks ridiculously good in natural light.

YEAR: 2025
MATERIAL: Crystal (pink)
SIZE: 17 cm (H) × 12 cm (W) × 6 cm (D)
EDITION: 50 + 1 AP

The set and the ritual of unboxing

I designed the presentation to feel like a small ceremony. The crystal pieces sit in a satin-lined box, because if you are going to buy a tiny horse made of light, it deserves a bit of theatre when it arrives. The goal is “gift-ready” without losing the studio soul of the work.

Why a horse, and why now

The Year of the Horse is often tied to momentum, vitality, and forward motion. I wanted to make a horse that feels like it’s ascending, not conquering. A horse that’s ambitious, but not angry about it.

Cloud-Mane Horse is my way of holding two truths at once:

the sky is always changing
some things, like intention, can be made to last

If you want a symbol for new beginnings that still has a bit of humour in its posture, this is my candidate.

Cloud-Mane Horse: Can Air Have Weight? A Year of the Horse Studio Edition