GRACE THUNDERS
Robb Report interview

RR: It took you three years to etch your way across these two enormous leather panels that now make up Grace Thunders. Would you say that this piece is the most extreme 'labour of love' so far in your artistic career?

ME: Unequivocally yes. Although in fact it’s not 2 leather panels, it’s 2 installations made up of 18 leather panels. It’s huge. 

In 2011, when Carmen Chua first commissioned me to create the piece, she said I had several years to complete the work, as the hotel wasn’t even built at that point. I immediately appreciated her forward planning and I was very grateful for the creative space the long timeframe that this project provided me. If I’d only been given a few months to create something I wouldn’t have had sufficient breathing space to explore the dangerous boundaries of Polo. With a completion date several years ahead of me I could throw myself into the work in a way I’d not done before. This was the best kind of commission, where the client allows the artist the freedom to be the artist, and fully develop ideas. You have time to play, and go beyond the norm.

RR: Where did you source your leather panels from? Are you very particular about the quality of the leather and what you expect from it as a canvas?

ME: I’m very particular about everything I do, especially the leather I source. The best leather in the world comes from Scandinavia, where there’s high rainfall and lush green pasture to feed big, healthy cows. Also the Scandinavian’s don’t use barbed wire fences, so the cow's skins are unscathed and unmarked - as close to perfect as possible. From there the skins get sent to Italy where they are tanned. The Italians are the best in the world at the tanning process as it’s been in their blood for generations. Conceptually with leather I’m looking for a transcendent surface, something mythic. Leather was once a living, breathing creature, and in our plastic, synthetic, digital world, leather has a rare authentic quality. Maybe my hunter/gatherer roots somehow resonate with leather. I’m cutting into skin, marking flesh. In carne. This is so important to me. Working in skin is a visceral experience, something primal I’m trying to understand. 

RR: You (quite literally) immersed yourself in the game of polo by burying yourself in a polo field, putting your own personal safety at risk. Could you describe what your thought processes were like during your time on the polo field, and what you took away with you from the experience?

ME: It’s funny how we all judge a book by its cover. To be honest when the idea of Polo was first suggested, my heart sank. I was bored with what I’d seen previously depicting Polo and horses. I was uninspired by how a dangerous, dynamic sport such as Polo had been photographed historically. I wanted to push the boundaries on how the images were captured, and shooting with long lenses from the safety of the side-lines of the field would never allow me to achieve this. I had to shoot with the camera directly under the thundering hooves to get the images I wanted. I needed to be in harm’s way. The inspiration was to take the viewer to a place they’ve never been before and show the game from a new point of view. My thought process in the days & weeks leading up to the shoot were when I made the creative choice to shoot from directly beneath the moving animals. On the actual day of the shoot it was carnage & mayhem. We were just trying to capture the perfect shot and not die trying. The players are so fearless and the horses so bombproof that they would have ridden right through us had the riders not been experts. The hooves thundered inches past our camera and head. The adrenaline was palpable, the fear was very real. But the shots I got were worth it, I don’t think Polo has ever been photographed like this before. We felt like war photographers, laid in the dirt, directly on the battle lines.  

RR: Do you believe art should always be approached as fearlessly as possible?

ME: I believe everything should be approached fearlessly - not just art. We can only progress if we are willing to go off piste, beyond our own grid and explore unchartered places. That takes courage, fear keeps us intimidated, timid.

RR: Creating this art piece in the knowledge that it was for The St. Regis Kuala Lumpur, were there any specific themes or elements that you drew on for inspiration, in order to link your piece to the hotel or the St. Regis spirit?

ME: This commission was a perfect collaboration of minds and talents. Carmen Chua is a visionary and she could see something in her mind’s eye before it was ever built. Her initial brief to me was Polo, and the rich heritage it has in Malaysia and particularly with the St Regis in a historic context. She explained the importance of the game nationally, and from that point onward she gave me free reign to be the artist and to come up with the ideas & compositions for the piece itself. My own heritage is rooted 6000 miles away from Malaysia, as I was born in the mountains of Wales. I was brought up on Welsh Rugby, another dangerous sport, and so when I went to watch a Polo match I saw the game through that same ‘Welsh-rugby’ lens, a fierce rush toward the ball, charging energy and strength. A violent collision, muscle and sinew… and yet speed, precise, deft movements. Grace Thunders. This diptych depicts my view of how Polo should be seen. Brutal yet beautiful, elegant yet raw.