The relationship between art and nature can spark something in people
Mirror Man Rob Mulholland on his new sculpture park
“These apocalyptic sculptures wouldn’t movie” look out of place in a sci-fi
DRYMEN-BASED artist Rob Mulholland makes the kind of apocalyptic sculptures that wouldn’t look out of place in a sci-fi movie. His beautiful, eerie mirrored statues and metal installations have made robust statements throughout the Scottish landscapes, in lochs, forests, mountains and cities. They have also taken him all over the world from Russia to Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.
But now Rob wants to bring his love of sculpture home, create a centre that supports local artists and encourage the public to get involved. In 2018, he and his wife Susan bought a farm near Drymen to create Arcadia Sculpture Centre.
“We’ve talked for years about opening a centre to showcase sculpture. It’s become a personal need of mine,” Rob says. “There’s nowhere in the west of Scotland that celebrates environmental art.”
Together, Rob and Susan are registering the Arcadia Sculpture Centre as a charitable company with the aim of advancing environmental art in Scotland.
“It’s something I’m passionate about. The relationship between art and nature and what it can spark in people.”
This drive to make people stop and think about ecology has always been at the heart of Rob’s work. After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1986, one of his first public sculptures was a giant standing stone made of crushed, recycled cans of Tennent’s Lager.
The sculpture, Monad, was a nod to the standing stones erected across Scotland thousands of years ago. It quietly asks – what mark on the world will our society leave behind?
“Back in the 90s no one really thought about recycling, and I wanted to bring awareness to it. From the start I was really interested in that aspect of ecology.”
It was in 2008 that Rob made his breakthrough using mirrored stainless steel – which has now become something of a trademark for him. Rob installed Vestige – mirrored human silhouettes – in the woods around Alloa, Loch Ard and at the David Marshall Lodge near Aberfoyle for the Loch Ard Sculpture Trail.
The mirrored steel gives distorted reflections of the nearby area, and is particularly effective in the Trossachs woodland. Because of their reflective surface, the figures are just about discernible from their surroundings.
Two years later, four further mirrored figures were commissioned for the Imagine Alloa project
– a £2 million regeneration of the Clackmannanshire town in 2010.
“People have taken photos of the figures and posted them on the web and others ask if the effect has been achieved with Photoshop – but it’s just a straight photograph,” Rob said.
One of his most captivating works is a statue called Still. Composed of hundreds of mirrored tiles, it became a cult figure known as Mirror Man, first installed on
“The mirrored steel gives a reflection” distorted
Loch Earn at St Fillans in 2014. Sadly, Still is no longer in situ, but the local community are campaigning to have the sculpture returned to look out over the loch.
Rob says the figure symbolises the physical and spiritual relationship between humans and the natural wilderness, a theme which has continued through many of his works.
“The reflective idea has been a mainstay ever since. I try to imbue a narrative in my art, and hope it makes people stop and think.”
These mesmerising sculptures attracted national and global attention and now his works of art are valued from between £50,000 to £300,000.
His pivotal work, Skytower, won him an award from Galvanisers Association in 2014. This striking six-metre (19 feet) sculpture sits like a beacon on top of Rawyards hilltop near Airdrie and was commissioned by the Forestry Commission Scotland.
It was constructed from thousands of small individual rods totalling more than 1400 metres (4593 feet) of steel, and involving 6000 individual welds. Skytower was designed to represent a freeze-frame moment in which a gust of wind has blown across the structure. Despite the strong frame, there is a tender edge of beauty about the magnificent sculpture.
Five years later, in 2019, the sculpture was still making waves, and Rob received a call from New York-based design gallery, Blank Space, with an extremely interesting proposal for him.
A company in Dallas, Texas, were looking to create a new landmark sculpture for the entrance to Cypress Waters, a 1000-acre (405-hectare) recreational business offices and leisure complex.
Rob agreed, and a new 11-metre (36 feet) version of Skytower, named Elemental Skytower, now rises above the Texan landscape.
It’s not the first time Rob’s work has been lauded on the other side of the Atlantic.
In 2016, he created a piece called One Flock in Portsmouth, Virginia, featuring 100 steel sculptures of great blue herons and humans. Together they depict the interdependence of nature and mankind through environmental challenges – including rising sea levels.
Despite working all over the world, Rob is most comfortable at home in Scotland, being inspired by both the landscape and the human relationship with nature. And it is here that he’s embarking on his most ambitious project to date, the Arcadia Sculpture Centre.
“I want to create a space to promote environmental
art, with free public access to the sculpture trail. We’re creating studios and will invite artists, students and local school kids to come along and create something to join the sculpture trail.”
The site also has 21 acres (nine hectares) of protected ancient woodland where artists can find inspiration. Thanks to a grant from LEADER, part of the Scottish Rural Development programme, Rob has built two log cabins and hopes to start hosting artist residencies.
“We bought the site two years ago, and with LEADER funding have been able to build the cabins. It has taken over our lives a bit! There will be a studio space and workshop space, and I want visitors to be able to see sculptures being created when they visit, to really promote environment art.”
Rob hopes that the centre will inspire visitors to consider the relationship between art and nature, and expanding awareness of ecological issues.
“Someone once said that being an artist isn’t about changing the world, it’s about influencing those who can – inspiring those that can make a difference. That’s really all I’m trying to do.”
“The trail will inspire visitors to think about nature” art and
For updates on the progress of the Arcadia Sculpture Centre visit www.robmulholland.org