16 Artists That Create Artworks Depicting Horses In Contemporary Art
16 contemporary artists reinvent the horse — from surreal stallions to symbolic beasts. An iconic animal reimagined in paint, sculpture, and video.
These 16 Artists Paint Horses. But It’s Not About Horses.
In art, they once carried kings, crashed into wars, pranced through childhood bedrooms.
They never really left. The horses, we mean.
Today, they return — not as symbols of victory, but of longing, power, fragility, or glitch.
This list brings together 16 contemporary artists who paint, sculpt, or digitally conjure horses. Some romanticize them.
Others unravel them. But all treat the horse not as animal, but as mirror.
What do we still see in that face? And what stares back?
16 CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS SHARE EXCEPTIONAL ARTWORKS OF HORSES:
Lou Benesch, Sarah Bogner, Amy Butowicz, NH Depass, Gabrielle Graessle, Domi Gratz, Egor Ivanov, Laurentius Sauer, Soeurs Siamoises, Jordan Sullivan, David Surman, Yirui Yiu, Tina Schneider, Marieke Bolhuis, Ricardo Rodriguez, Jan Możdżyński, Eva Eichinger
HORSE PAINTINGS IN CONTEMPORARY ART - A BRIEF HISTORIC OVERVIEW
Mans fascination for horses in art dates back to ancient cave paintings all the way through to the modern horse in contemporary art.
In Chauvet, France, the cave painting of four horses’ heads found date back to 30,000 BC. From paintings to life size sculptures, the horse in history was primarily a religious symbol, and considered a sacred animal in ancient times.
Today we associate the horse with power, wealth, strength, speed, beauty, and also sensitivity and vulnerability.
Famous artists like Albrecht Durer, Eugène Delacroix, Horse Frightened by Lightning. Degas on racing horses.
Dominique Catherina Foertig
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The Blaue Reiter Group with Franz Marc and his blue horses to Picassos Boy, leading horse paintings. Salvador Dali and his horses in a surreal environment.
The Horse in Motion cabinet cards by Eadweard Muybridge and art icons like Maurice Catalans used horses in their work.
They Don’t Just Paint Horses — They Collaborate with Them
LOU BENESCH | THE ROAD
I’ve been around and riding horses since I was very young and to give them a place in my artistic practice has never been a question, they have just always been there.
Horsed are imbued with the aura of mythological creatures; they have always walked by the side of knights and dragons, they have carried gods like Odin, they have been graced with wings and many more magical attributed that you can definitely feel when you are around them.
I think that their presence in my work it might be a way of thanking them for letting me be around them in the first place.
I’ve always been amazed by the fact these giant creatures allow us to get so close to them and build an incredible relationship with its own language and power.
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Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez Cosme (b. 1992, based in Valencia) paints horses and cowboys with a classical hand and a contemporary eye.
His black-and-white oil paintings channel the precision of realism, yet feel suspended in time — intimate, cinematic, and quietly charged.
Often capturing galloping motion or stoic stillness, his work transforms familiar Western tropes into emotionally layered portraits of nostalgia and presence.
Ricardo Rodriguez Cosme on Instagram
Eva Eichinger
In her series for the delicate, Eva Eichinger paints racehorses not in motion, but in disguise — masked, paused, quietly monumental.
Eva Eichinger: horse portrait series „for the delicate“ to you the prints are 30x40 cm | printed on munken lynx | editions of 18 | signed and numbered @base_at4
Eva Eichinger: (left) Horse portrait 3 25x20 cm oil on paper - 2024 (right) it’s when I look inside I’m the most exposed ; 110x100 cm 2020 oil on paper
Drawing from the imagery of the Rennbahn, she softens the spectacle into portraiture, letting oil and tenderness blur the lines between strength and stillness. Her horses don’t gallop — they watch, wait, endure.
Eva Eichinger on Instagram
Jan Możdżyński
In Jan Możdżyński’s world, the cowboy doesn’t conquer — he poses, flirts, and sometimes dreams of a plastic horse. Blending cartoon logic with queer myth-making, Możdżyński’s vibrant paintings and sculptural works subvert the macho codes of the Western genre.
Think: neon stallions, soft pistols, and duels that end in eye contact. While horses aren’t always front and center, they’re part of the fantasy — stylized sidekicks in a performative playground of gender, camp, and emotional mischief.
Recently seen in I’m so gay for you and exhibitions like Fantasising About Wild Horses, Możdżyński turns the West into a theatre of longing — and makes us wonder: what if the horse was always in on the act?
SARAH BOGNER | RUNNER
Sarah Bogner and her pink horses.
The Horse:
Love and disgrace. Under the hooves: Rash, on the heads: Hats Hold my stirrup once, provide for me the Look Of Love, and keep the Empty Eye away
That's all I can do, Smilers.
AMY BUTOWICZ | MUFF HOUSE
Muff House is inspired by my relationship to animals in general, not specifically horses. With this said, I do have a long history with horses. I have owned several and used to be a competitive rider. This history definitely enters into the work.
The piece is also inspired by Egyptian furniture. Egyptians' believed when using the animal leg in furniture, the symbolic powers of the animal would transfer to the sitter.
As an artist who uses anthropomorphism in their work, I am interested in the Egyptians' shift of humans taking on the characteristics of animals instead of assigning human characteristics to animals and objects.
NH DEPASS | NICHOLAS - A SELF PORTRAIT
Featured Artist NH Depass shares his unique piece Self portrait.
Why a horse?: In terms of symbolism, I see the Horse and the Snake as opposing forces, and employ both of them in my work.
In this particular work, Nicholas - A Self Portrait, I depict each of these animals. At the bottom of the sculpture near the feet, is a glass terrarium housing a molded snake, representing darkness, or the shadow.
The vintage poster of the horse sits above the desk, representing aspiration, freedom, and companionship.
However, it could be said much more simply – I adore horses and am terrified of snakes.
GABRIELLE GRAESSLE | HO HO
Gabrielle Graessle's work is breathtaking and we simply cant get enough of her kitsch and colourful paintings! We especially love her horse painting called HO HO!
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DOMI GRATZ| HORSE
Domi Gratz, one of the youngest artists featured by Munchies Art Club, shares her vibrant take on the horse - not just as an animal, but as a feeling.
In her painting Horse, expressive lines and bright colors collide to capture a sense of unbridled energy. Mixing oil pastel with acrylic, Gratz channels childhood fascination into something raw and free.
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EGOR LOVKI | PFERD 1
This piece reflects a childhood memory — the toy horse everyone wanted to ride. But not all memories are sweet; some are ones you'd rather forget.
That’s what my work explores: the darker corners of childhood.
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DOUGLAS CANTOR RAMIREZ | HOT CITY WEATHER
The horse carries so much meaning within Latin American culture. A symbol that shifts meaning deepening on context, the stallion of the rich, the working horse of the poor.
The horse has taken the place of me in the works as a way to be present as the subject in a less direct way.
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LAURENTIUS SAUER | DIAMONDS
Laurentius Sauer began painting horses in 2017 - first as classical subjects, later as symbols of power and status, much like luxury cars today.
Historically tied to male dominance, conquest, and control, Sauer flips the narrative: in his works, men fall off their horses, often absurdly, while the animal escapes, liberated.
He admits he doesn’t like horses much — “too big, too muscular” — but as a symbol of freedom and failed masculinity, they’re irresistible. Romantic, ridiculous, and finally unmounted
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LES SOEURS SIAMOISES | L'ÉQUIPÉE DES ÉQUIDÉS OU LA PREMIÈRE SORTIE DU PETIT
Featured Artists Les Soeurs Siamoises share their horse painting with us.
JORDAN SULLIVAN | MOON MOTEL
Douglas Sullivan’s paintings appear like moments out of a film, fragments where larger than life figures break their viewers’ sense of scale. This destabilizing element is deliberate, as Sullivan pulls the rug from underneath, removing the easy comfort of looking.
His American imagery is loaded, barren, and desperate. His figures—straggly travellers traipsing through casinos, forlorn punks staring into the distance, boxers in the final round at a match, tired patrons at a dive bar -beg the question what is America? Is this everything? At the same time, these works still dare to wonder what else can it be?” -
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DAVID SURMAN | BRUMBY PARZIFAL (AFTER HOKUSAI)
David Surman returns to the horse again and again — not for anatomy, but for emotion. “They seem so full of meaning for me,” he’s said, and his recent works prove it.
In exhibitions like After the Flood at Rebecca Hossack, Surman paints horses and other animals with lush, gestural urgency, balancing wild instinct with mythic quiet.
David Surmann - Artist
Works like Horse in Winter and Kelpie of Loch Ailort (both 2024) feel less like portraits and more like psychic weather reports — where the horse is symbol, atmosphere, and emotional proxy all at once.
YIRUI JIA | ONE DAY I WILL LEAVE YOU NO.1
Yirui Jia featured artist shares her horse painting with us.
Tina Schneider :
Tina Schneider’s carved wooden figures straddle the space between animal and human, myth and memory.
Her sculptures carry the weight of touch; rough, imperfect, vital — and often evoke the presence of animals without naming them.
CATAPULT – Curated Art Signals
Tina Schneider Journey
While no direct evidence confirms that horses appear in her work, their spirit lingers: upright spines, quiet tension, forms that seem mid-motion or mid-thought.
In Schneider’s world, the horse might not be carved but it’s felt.
Final Words:
From surreal symbolism to raw emotional proxies, these contemporary artists use the horse to explore identity, power, memory, and freedom.
Whether painted, sculpted, or imagined - the horse remains a vital figure in contemporary art.
This evolving feature highlights artists redefining what the horse can mean today.
🎠 This article is still in motion.
Are you working on paintings that use the horse as more than just a subject — as symbol, memory, or metaphor?
→ Write to Anna or follow our ongoing discoveries on Instagram.
We’re always looking for artists who bring new layers to the saddle.
Dominique Catherina Foertig
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