24-05-2025
Sculpture trail opens deep below ground in Forest of Dean caves
The works of more than 50 sculptors are being featured in a trail 100ft (30m) beneath the ground in caves this to the Cave – The Full Spectrum, opened at Clearwell Caves in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire on 23 modern and contemporary artworks, including pieces by Damien Hirst and Lynn Chadwick, are dotted along the 1800ft-long (500m) paint pigment has been mined from the natural cave system near Coleford for at least 5,000 years – providing inspiration to organisers to use it as a space for art.
As visitors get deeper into the caves, the colours in the exhibition become more Reid from Stroud, a glass artist, created a bright red hoop that glows in the dark."I was so chuffed to see it but I'm pleased with the colour and the form in this setting, so that you can look through the piece and the cave goes on behind," he said.
Rungwe Kingdon, a co-creator of the exhibition, said putting the art in the caves created "childlike wonder"."However well-known the art is, it makes it very accessible in the sense that it makes it into an adventure," he said.
Patricia Volk, an artist from Bradford-on-Avon, said it was "a joy" for her work to be showcased."People are inclined to think of sculpture as just brown bronzes or stone and I think this brings a whole feeling of colour to sculpture itself," she said."I think certainly at the moment, when there seems to be a shortage of places to exhibit work... this is something that needs to be done in a lot more different places so people can appreciate it and get in contact with it."
Clearwell Caves are part of a Natural England-designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and the Wye Valley Special Area of Conservation due to the large number of lesser horseshoe caves have been used as a filming location for TV shows including Doctor Who, The Winter King and Merlin.
