Emrys — The Great Welsh Dragon

How do you tell the story of a nation in a single sculpture?

I decided to build a dragon.

But I didn't want to create simply another representation of the Welsh Dragon.

I wanted the dragon itself to become Wales.

Its history. Its mythology. Its landscape. Its industries. Its people. The stories we know to be true and the legends that have been passed from one generation to another.

Emrys — The Great Welsh Dragon became my attempt to bring all of those things together in one monumental work of art.

It took me two and a half years.

And somewhere along the way, it became much more personal than I had expected.

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Creating a dragon from Wales

I wanted Wales to exist not simply in the imagery covering Emrys, but in the very materials from which he was made.

Copper, steel and Welsh slate connect him to the industries that helped shape the country.

His structure became a landscape upon which I could build.

His body gave me somewhere to celebrate the Welsh people.

His base allowed me to map the country beneath him.

And the great painted panels gave me two very different ways of telling the story of Wales.

On one side: history.

On the other: legend.

The Wales that existed — and the Wales that lives within our imagination.

Every part of Emrys became another opportunity to tell a story.

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A dragon about people

A country is more than its borders, castles and landscape.

It is its people.

That became one of the most important ideas behind Emrys.

Across his body, hundreds of individually worked copper scales carry the names of Welsh men and women who have contributed to the story of Wales.

They come from different worlds and different generations — actors, musicians, writers, sportspeople, inventors, thinkers and others whose lives have become part of our cultural identity.

Together, those individual names form the skin of the dragon.

I love the idea that from a distance you see Wales.

Move closer, and you begin to see the people who made it.

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History on one side. Mythology on the other.

Wales has always existed for me in two worlds.

There is the Wales of history — invasion, industry, religion, rebellion, castles, communities and change.

And then there is another Wales.

The Wales of dragons and giants. Of magic, curses, transformations and impossible adventures. The Wales preserved in stories such as those of the Mabinogion.

I didn't want to choose between them.

So Emrys carries both.

One side of the dragon explores the factual story of Wales.

The other enters its mythology and folklore.

Neither feels less important to me.

History tells us what happened.

Mythology tells us something about the people who remembered it.

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A piece of home

There was another story quietly developing beneath Emrys.

Mine.

I created him while living away from Wales.

Distance has a strange way of changing the way you see home. Things that once seemed ordinary become important. Landscape becomes memory. Familiar stories become connections. Even the sound of a Welsh voice can suddenly carry enormous weight.

There is a Welsh word that comes close to describing it:

Hiraeth.

A longing for home — but somehow more complicated than homesickness alone.

Looking back, I can see that Emrys was not simply an enormous research project about Wales.

He was also my way of reconnecting with it.

Perhaps that is why I became so obsessed with the detail.

I wasn't simply building a dragon.

I was building a piece of home.

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From an idea to a monumental sculpture

Emrys took two and a half years to create.

During that time he passed through an extraordinary number of processes — construction, metalwork, painting, etching, mosaic and painstaking hand-finishing.

Hundreds of copper scales had to be made. Painted panels had to be researched and created. Welsh history and mythology had to be condensed into a finite space. The base became a map. Industrial materials became part of the narrative.

And somehow, all of those individual pieces eventually had to become one dragon.

The Creation Gallery follows that journey.

There you can watch Emrys grow from his earliest stages into the finished sculpture and see just how much work disappeared beneath the final surface.

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See How Emrys Was Created

But what does it all mean?

Seeing Emrys tells you only part of his story.

Why are his legs connected to the Welsh coal industry?

Why copper?

Why slate?

Who are the people covering his scales?

Why are railways running through the landscape beneath him?

Which castles appear — and why?

What stories are hidden within the painted panels?

And how do you even begin deciding which pieces of an entire nation's history deserve a place on one sculpture?

Those stories belong in my Artist Journal.

There, I take Emrys apart again — not physically, thankfully — and explore the history, mythology, symbolism, people and personal decisions hidden throughout the work.

Explore the Gallery

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Enter the Emrys Artist Journal

Where is Emrys now?

After two and a half years of living with an enormous Welsh dragon, eventually I had to let him go.

Today, Emrys — The Great Welsh Dragon is displayed at Swansea University's Bay Campus.

There is something particularly fitting about him being back in Wales, where people can walk around him, get close to the details and discover that what initially appears to be a dragon contains an entire country.

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Take the story home

For those who want to explore Emrys beyond the sculpture itself, I also created a book documenting his story.

It brings together the research, mythology, Welsh history, symbolism, people and creative journey behind the work, accompanied by photographs that allow you to examine details that can easily be missed when viewing the complete sculpture.

The book is available as a digital eBook and as a premium printed edition.

The printed edition is produced and fulfilled by Blurb, who manage production, shipping and customer service. I am responsible for the artwork and content of the book.

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Discover the Emrys Book

A dragon may be the symbol of Wales.

Emrys is my attempt to show you what lives inside it.