Between Sky, Soil, and Spirit – Todd Horner and Jose Trejo Maya
- TAC Gallery
- Feb 2
- 2 min read
A new exhibition, Between Sky, Soil, and Spirit, brings together photography and poetry to feature works by Todd Horner and José Trejo Maya whose creative paths are deeply shaped by land, memory and ancestral tradition. The exhibition opens First Friday, February 6, 2026 at TAC Gallery and runs through February 28.
Native Kansan Todd Horner presents black-and-white photographs rooted in the endangered tallgrass prairie of the Flint Hills, where he was born and raised. Surrounded by vast skies and seas of grass, Horner developed a lifelong connection to the prairie that continues to inform his artistic vision. Though self-taught, his technical practice has been influenced by workshops and coursework during high school and college.
Horner works exclusively in black and white, viewing the medium as an interpretive act rather than a replication of reality. With the prairie’s mood shifting constantly due to wind and light, his process relies on improvisation and patience. He employs 35mm, medium-format and digital cameras, along with custom monochrome equipment, tripods and shutter-release cables, to capture fleeting moments within the landscape. Horner currently resides at the southern edge of the Flint Hills in Osage County, Oklahoma.
Joining Horner is interdisciplinary artist and writer José Trejo Maya whose work emerges from the Nahuatlacah oral tradition as a tonalpouhque Mexica – a priest, or soothsayer, responsible for reading the sacred calendar. Born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico, and raised in the rural pueblo of Tarimoró, he immigrated to the United States in 1988. His practice draws from Indigenous memory, prophecy and poetry, informed by literary influences including Netzahualcoyotl, Humberto Ak’abal, Ray A. Young Bear, James Welch and Juan Rulfo.
His work has been published internationally and recognized with numerous honors, including a Pushcart Prize nomination, international poetry awards, and fellowships. His visual art has been exhibited across the United States and abroad, with public sculptures installed in Washington, Oregon and Massachusetts, and international projects extending to Dubai. In November 2025, his work was included in the BitBasel Space: Art for Impact Initiative aboard the Griffin-1 lunar lander as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
Between Sky, Soil, and Spirit – Todd Horner and Jose Trejo Maya brings photography and poetry together in an exhibition shaped by prairie landscapes, ancestral memory, and Indigenous tradition, on view at TAC Gallery in February 2026. reflects a convergence of landscape, ancestry and vision—where prairie horizons meet prophecy and memory is rendered through image and word.
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