Hereford Sculpture Trail
Project Insights
In 2024 eight new contemporary artworks for Hereford City Centre were jointly commissioned by Hereford College of Arts and Meadow Arts to celebrate 170 years of creative education in the city. The new Sculpture Trail in Hereford city centre draws inspiration from past English laws of the 17th and 18th centuries that required shops to display visual trade representations crafted by local artisans. The project reimagines this tradition for the 21st century, reusing empty signage brackets above retail units.
The project aims to:
- Improve the public realm – make Hereford a better place to live, work and visit.
- Celebrate Hereford’s culture, history and heritage through a celebration of 170 years of creative education in the city.
- Showcase Herefordshire’s incredible artistic talent by connecting Hereford College of Arts with the city centre and improving the visibility of the valuable contribution of the arts to the cultural economy of the region.
Artworks commissioned by Meadow Arts include:
- Cloud Palette #1 by Matthew Cornford
- Diamond by Lothar Götz
- Unleashed by Laura White
- Wonders by Celia Johnson and Wigmore High School, Class 10
Artists
For over ten years Matthew Cornford has been working with John Beck to explore the history and significance of UK art schools. The ongoing Art School Project aims to develop an understanding of the role of art education in towns and cities across the country since the middle of the 19c. This has resulted in numerous exhibitions of photography, texts and archives. In 2023 they completed a Meadow Arts and Hereford College of Arts public art commission for the Station Approach residential building in Hereford. Matthew Cornford teaches on the fine art programme at the University of Brighton.
Laura White exhibited at No.1 Station Approach, Hereford, 2024 – 2025, commissioned by Meadow Arts and Hereford College of Arts; and The Precious Clay, Museum of Royal Worcester, 2018 – 2019, commissioned by Meadow Arts.
Image: Laura White, White Mud, 2018.
Lotar Götz exhibited at No.1 Station Approach, Hereford (2022 – 2023) and Hereford Sculpture Trail (2024).
Lothar Götz was commissioned for No.1 Station Approach, Hereford, 2022. A partnership between Meadow Arts & Hereford College of Arts. Photos: Oliver Cameron-Swan.
Celia is an artist based in Hereford, currently studying for a PhD and making work about an Industrial Estate in Wolverhampton. Her practice is about place, community and identity; she’s fascinated by how we encounter the world and its things and is interested in archives, psychogeography, scavenging, the post-industrial landscape, loss and precarity.
Rich Makin studied 3Dimensional Design at Farnham in Surrey. As an Artist, Designer Maker and Educator he has the opportunity to share his knowledge, skills and passion. His practice allows him to innovate between traditional skilled making and the rapidly evolving digital realm.
Nicholas Stevenson is an award-winning Graphic Artist, Illustrator and Animator living in Hereford. He studied illustration at Hereford College of Arts and now lectures on the BA(hons) Illustration and BA(hons) Illustration & Animation courses. Nicholas has worked with clients such as Google, Dell, Intel and enjoys exploring ideas of silliness, magic, joy, shadow, folk, history, nature and mystery. When Nicholas was a child he lived briefly in Seychelles. The view from his bedroom window seemed filled with oddly glowing plants in the moonlight, the feeling of which is the sturgeon Nicholas has chased in his artwork.
BorderLands exhibiting artist (15 May – 31 August 2026) and Hereford Sculpture Trail (2024).
In this sculpture Mark Haughton uses the fact that most people are remarkably comfortable in translating the 2 dimensional pictorial information on a map to the vastness of a 3 dimensional landscape, and vice versa, which constitutes an extreme form of abstraction.
Transmuting the map into another medium removes all legible information, so the map now becomes a pure object. With only the form remaining, it is no longer a tool. The familiar now feels unfamiliar as it hovers between figuration and abstraction.
The piece is primarily a monument to the futility of naming and claiming landmasses in the face of geological time and the oneness of land and sea. Given recent world political events, and global climatic concerns, the piece retains and extends its significance in an ever-changing geopolitical landscape.
Dan Moss, was born in Watford and grew up in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. After leaving school at 16 he joined a German company Lieherr, and he completed a 5-year apprenticeship as a heavy plant mechanical engineer. In 2010 on his return from a 6month trip to Japan, he decided to start his career as a blacksmith. Working with a blacksmith base in Baldock in Hertfordshire, Ronnie Shipman told Daniel about the degree course in artist blacksmithing in Herefordshire. Enrolling on the course in 2011 and graduating in 2014 with a first class BA Hons it was time to set up his own workshop and forge.
Dan has slowly been growing his business as a blacksmith, engineer and welder fabricator making gates, railings, and tools. He teaches blacksmithing at Hereford and Ludlow College at Holme Lacey campus and his class at Hereford Make.
Works in this project
Partners
The sculpture trail is one part of the Art + People + Place programme, commissioned in partnership with Studio Response, it is part of the £6 million Hereford City Centre Improvements (HCCI) project. The overall project aims to refurbish the historic core of Hereford through investment in the streetscape, landscaping and public realm, and is funded jointly by the Herefordshire Council and Marches LEP. The public art project has been years in the making, bringing together local people, students, businesses and stakeholders from across the city to add creativity and vibrancy to our streets. Herefordshire Council held a public consultation session in June 2023 which provided themes, ideas and locations that have fed into the final artworks.
