PEOPLE of Bridport have come together to celebrate the gift of art and formally welcome ten life-size sculptures to the town.

British artist and sculptor Greta Berlin has donated ten life-size sculptures to Bridport which can be seen around the town. Eight are on display in Riverside Gardens on the eastern side of town, one resides in Plottingham Field whilst another, ‘Mother & Child’ sculpture is being moved around various indoor locations.

The gift of artworks to Bridport, first reported by the News last month, recognises and celebrates the town’s long association with and support of the arts.

Ms Berlin said: “With the arts in education being eroded and funding vanishingly rare we are in danger of becoming a culturally barren country, I wanted, in some small way to redress the balance.

“Bridport has a wide reputation as a community for the arts, and a town council sympathetic to our cultural life, while looking for a permanent home for my collection where a wider audience would be found”.

Her work is a reflection of her take on the world and nowadays she is interested in decay and finding old rusty steel and broken things, then bringing it back to life to watch them decay again and watching birds’ nest in them – she describes it as giving a perspective to life and continuity.

All of her works have deeper meanings behind them including ‘Lost Identity’ which is a reflection on the horrors that so many people find themselves in today, fleeing from war and famine, through unimaginable dangers, to seek sanctuary on distant shores, where they often find, they are not welcomed.

Whilst ‘Woman’ is a sculpture created by Ms Berlin after she was asked by a Bridport woman to make a piece about the altered body image and to promote acceptance.

In welcoming the gift of artworks to Bridport, Mayor Ian Bark said: “We are honoured to receive such an important body of work from Greta, having her artworks displayed together in the open air will be a source of interest and at times a challenge for many years to come”.

Further sculptures are displayed around town, as part of the annually changing Bridport Sculpture Trail, with works by Isla Chaney, Greta Berlin, Brendon Murless, Vik Westaway, Carrie Mason in the green spaces surrounding the town including Asker Meadows, Plottingham Field, Riverside Gardens, Borough Gardens and the Millennium Green.

You can find more information here: https://www.bridport-tc.gov.uk/sculpture-trail/, or you pick up a leaflet in Bridport Tourist Information Centre.