Meet Amazing Matchstick Sculptor Tomislav Horvat

Tomislav Horvat and his matchstick creation of Al Pacino (photo: Tomislav Horvat)

Croatia Week caught up with Tomislav Horvat, the talented artist who is making a name for himself in Croatia thanks to his amazing sculptures made from matchsticks…

Tomislav (26), who is from Podturen near Čakovec in northern Croatia, has been interested in making matchstick sculptures since high school. He has produced a number of mind-blowing sculptures already, including a bridge, windmill and a life-size ‘Godfather’ sculpture of Al Pacino as Don Corleone sitting in his iconic armchair, for which he used 117,000 matches for. He is currently finishing a life-size sculptor of W.A Mozart on the piano, which will be his biggest sculpture to date using over 200,000 matches.

Tomislav’s impressive matchstick sculptures (photo: Tomislav Horvat)

Tomislav, how and when did you take up your hobby of creating matchstick sculptures?

I started with matches when I was still in high school. I’ve always been interested in art, eminently Italian Renaissance. I decided to work with the matches as they are readily available.

One of your famous sculptures is the one of Al Pacino, what inspired you to create that?

He inspired me with his amazing talent for acting. For me he is the best actor and so I chose that to be my first sculpture.

A lot of matchsticks (photo: Tomislav Horvat)

How long do the sculptures take to do?

Production time depends on the size of the sculpture. Al Pacino took me 19 months of work, and for the W.A Mozart sculpture almost two and a half years. When making the sculpture I first cut off the top of the matches, and then I go and make the design.

Where do you get the all those matches from?

From the nearby shops. But everyone knows what I do.

Are your sculptures exhibited anywhere?

I create sculptures in this studio in Podturen. I exhibited last year in Zagreb and Čakovec. There are plans for some more exhibitions.

Al Pacino took 19 months to complete (photo: Tomislav Horvat)

What is next?

The plan is to make sculptures by Michelangelo. But before that, I will make one thematic sculpture, which will remain secret until the very end.

W.A Mozart on the piano nearly complete (photo: Tomislav Horvat)

You can check out more of Tomislav’s work on his Facebook page here.