Jesse Horton was born in Bermuda in 1980 to parents Walter and Peggy Horton. This was a place where he grew up fishing for dinner and everyone on the island knew everyone else. The Horton family eventually moved to Colorado, exchanging the turquoise waters and pink sand beaches of Bermuda for snow and high mountains. This exposed Jesse to a whole new world where bears replaced sharks, and Porcupines replaced puffer fish. Everything was different to what he had known. With a father like Walter Horton, no frontier would be left unexplored for long. Jesse and his brother Ben soon became as comfortable in the cold mountains as in the tropics.
The exposure to different worlds and cultures didn’t stop there. Jesse has spent considerable time living in Central America and Oceana as well as having traveled to a long list of places occupying the far corners of the globe. These experiences are part of what comes out in Jesse’s creative works. A diverse life has created a diverse field of artwork. Although sculpting is the family tradition, getting behind a lens underwater was where things really started.
Jesse has over 100 individual submarine dives to anywhere from 300ft to 1500 ft, but not just as a passenger. He became a pilot for small submersibles, exploring and filming a wide range of diverse subjects, everything from whale sharks to small invertebrates still unknown to science. The ocean remains Jesse’s first home and the one he still works to showcase through his cameras and his artwork. His works have been published through National Geographic, BBC, Discovery Channel, ESPN, and more. It was after his father’s passing, though, that sculpting took on a new meaning for him.
Jesse grew up in an environment where he watched his father create for the simple love of expression. No question was too simple or too silly. Walter taught his sons that anything is possible, and that is how they approach life to this day, with tenacity and curiosity. Jesse’s bronze art reflects a life of travel and observation. His pieces attempt to make the observer have a connection to a place far away, and sometimes make them smile as his father’s works do so famously. Clay can be molded in a way that tells a story, and captures an emotion. Jesse attempts to do just that. 