The hoarding came away today and there it was. A horse. A huge black horse, mid-stride, standing exactly where the painted box and then the mirrored box have stood since May.
It is a bronze carriage horse by the sculptor Sophie Dickens, commissioned in 2015 for the Palace Hotel, now the Kimpton Clocktower. Three metres tall, under the glass dome of the reception. The spot is not random. When the building was the Victorian offices of the Refuge Assurance Company, the atrium held a turning circle for horses and carriages.
The horse was there all along. The hotel wanted to hold the unveiling until the Refuge opened, so it sat under a box, and I was asked to decorate the box.
The first version was a quick turnaround. The point was to get something on there as soon as possible, so it stopped being a grey box in the middle of reception. I painted my design straight onto it with brushes.
The mirrored box was the main idea, meant as the jewel in the crown of the Palace Hotel. Laser cut acrylic, put together in the studio, then transported and installed in the same spot.
Reception looks completely different now. Everything we made for that spot turns out to have been cover for this, two acts of the same piece.
I photographed it from across the floor and left it alone. Some things do not need a caption.
Part of The Palace Hotel Commission.