“Mother-Load,” 2008, mixed media

“It’s made out of sugar!”

That’s the observation I heard most frequently on a recent visit to Australian sculptor Timothy Horn’s exhibit “Bitter Suite” which is currently on display at San Francisco’s M.H. de Young Memorial Museum through October 12 as part of their Collections Connections program.

Indeed it is. The Cinderella carriage and baroque chandelier, two of the pieces in the three piece suite, are covered in shiny chunks of amber-colored rock sugar. But there’s something dark lurking underneath all that candy. Horn is an artist known for blurring the lines between the beautiful and the grotesque.

I recently interviewed the Chimayo, New Mexico-based artist and asked him a few questions about “Bitter Suite” and its enigmatic subject, San Francisco philanthropist and socialite Alma de Bretteville Spreckels.

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