A Garth Evans' sculpture is nearing its' return to Cardiff City Centre
- Cole Harris
- Jul 28, 2019
- 2 min read
A hammer-like sculpture that was once seen in the Cardiff City Centre is nearing its return after a fundraiser to bring it home has reached almost £14,000.
The Chapter Arts Centre in Canton is close to achieving its goal of £16,000 to restore and return the sculpture, by British Artist Garth Evans’, where it will sit in the Hayes for six months before finding a new permanent home in Wales. The sculpture was moved from its original location to Leicestershire after only six-months, where it was left neglected and hidden from public view.
Hannah Firth, who is heading up the fundraiser, said: “We’ve so far raised 82% of our target, with a couple thousand pounds to reach by midnight. It will take the total up to the £16,000 that we need to do the restoration work and transport the sculpture back here.”
Despite starting the fundraiser, the Chapter Arts Centre say they want the sculpture to be put back near its original location, rather than at the arts centre in Canton.
Hannah Firth said: “We wanted to put it near its original site because Garth Evans wants to gather people’s reactions to the sculpture. We didn’t necessarily want it close to the arts centre here because a lot of people coming here will already have a relationship with his work.
“He wants it to have more of an impact on the city to see what people’s reactions might be.”
As well as bringing back the sculpture, the Chapter Arts Centre say they will be hosting an exhibition of some of Evans’ works.
She said: “The idea to re-site the sculpture here coincides with an exhibition of Evans’ work which we will be hosting in the Chapel gallery as well. This is because we feel Garth Evans’ practices have been very influential and that he is still making very current work.
“He’s also someone who’s taught widely and talked widely about his work and obviously in his practice, being so influential, has had quite the impact on students and people based in Wales.”
With the hope of the goal being reached, Firth said: “This is the first time we’ve worked on something like this because what we tend to do is commission new work from artists, but it’s unusual for us to visit works from the past for restoration. But because we’re also commissioning new work and showing work from Garth we felt this is an important part of that project in Cardiff.
“We have a duty of care to those works, to look after them so the public can enjoy them as they’re intended. It would be great if we can really push that in the future.”
The deadline for the fundraiser is Monday the 14th of January at midnight.
