Exhibitions and Talks in Taunton

The piece has been commissioned as part of Bampfylde 300, a year of exhibitions and events celebrating the life and work of Hestercombe’s former owner and landscape designer, Coplestone Warre Bampfylde.

Made using local Morte Slate, Jackdaw Line snakes through the landscape below the Box Pond at Hestercombe, and uses stone sourced from a quarry in the same valley.

Richard Long describes his work in general as a ‘love and celebration of the natural world’; and of this new sculpture he says ‘I’m an opportunist – I was invited to make a work, not far from my home, in these beautiful gardens with a fantastic supply of stones, and the help of gardeners who turned their skilled hands to manning wheelbarrows.’

The meandering sculpture is a reminder for the artist of River of Stones, a work made at the eighteenth century Madhavendra Palace in Jaipur in 2018.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Long has continued to make work from his home in Bristol, including Spring Line (2020) and Daydreaming Line (2020) both made by the act of walking near his home. This new stone work is Long’s first since the easing of the lockdown.