I’m Horacio Abdala, better known as Horno. A visual artist and graphic designer based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The name says it all: HORNO is “porno” with an H for Horacio. It’s also heat, urgency — what happens when desire can’t wait.

The project was born in 2015 as a kind of artistic coming out. I had already come out as gay — but not as an artist. I needed to take a stand and make a statement: about how I see my own sexuality, and how I wish the world would see sex. With less taboo. Less shame. More color.

I work with faceless bodies because sex is universal. Without a face, any body can be anyone — any skin, any fantasy, yours or mine. I deliberately use pastel palettes and a “cute” aesthetic to give something that could be shocking a softer entry point — more poetic, more accessible.

Humor is the lubricant of all of this. I use it to approach situations that can be harsh, grotesque, or difficult to process — sometimes irreverent, sometimes uncomfortable, depending on what I want to convey. Always as a way to soften the physical, never as decoration.

Playfulness is central. Sex as an adult game — joyful, colorful, free of solemnity. This appears both in the illustrations and in the objects: pieces made of painted and turned MDF wood, combined with plastic chains and materials that evoke play. The very morphology of the objects is part of the joke, and part of the poetry.

I’m also interested in what happens around sex: the thoughts that cross the mind in the middle of it, the emotions that aren’t purely sexual, the darker side, the gaze of others on oneself and one’s own gaze on others.

My references range from Pop Art and Keith Haring to manga, anime, and the surrealism of Magritte and De Chirico — art that plays, that unsettles, that blends the everyday with the impossible.

Since 2015, I’ve exhibited in Argentina, Mexico, Barcelona, New York, and San Francisco. I’ve collaborated with LGBTIQ+ NGOs and festivals on campaigns focused on sexual health, prevention, and anti-discrimination — including work with HIV communities — in the UK, Berlin, and New Zealand.

This is not porn. Or maybe it is. That’s exactly the question.

For original works, collaborations, or simply to connect: hihorno@gmail.com