A Toy Horse

Invited by Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Creative Director of Hermès, to create a sculpture for the atrium at 166. A Toy Horse, responds to the Emile Hermès collection in Paris, the alert pose - head and tail raised - is inspired by a tiny glass rocking horse in the museum. Enlarging it to life-size, the work holds both intimacy and monumentality, connecting to the store’s Alice in Wonderland theme, where shifts in scale transform perception and invites a sense of curiosity, play, and disorientation.

 

Mounted on wheels and assembled in visible sections, the work resists the idea of a fixed central monument. The sculpture can wander through the atrium, it is never fully settled - something both intentional and incidental. 

 

The toy horse is a simple, iconic framework, where the Horse and carriage merge into a single sculptural form, transforming from functional to fantastical. A white horse is also a powerful symbol in European History associated with the sun. In British Celtic traditions it was associated with the Otherworld. 

 

Hand-drawn figures swim, float, and drift across the surface like shadows. These motifs are traditionally associated with protection, healing, and good fortune. The sculpture is made from Jesmonite a gypsum based acrylic, built over a steel armature with a recycled polystyrene core.

 

Overall this piece gives people a sense that imagination is something we carry with us, not something we grow out of.

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Read full interview here