Why a new sculpture has appeared in Liverpool and what it means

If you have been walking along the River Mersey in Liverpool you may have spotted a half-fish, half-man sculpture sitting on a brick plinth in front of a church.

With its legs crossed and hands on its knees, the stone artwork is inspired by the river's folklore.

Artist Patric Rogers has explained what is behind the sculpture, which has won the annual Liverpool Sculpture Prize.

Liverpool-born Rogers said the piece, entitled Skalli, is rooted in the river's history as a site of movement, exchange and memory.

He said it also reflected the constant flow of arrivals and departures that had shaped the city's identity.

"Public art has the ability to add a layer of storytelling to a city's streets, and what I wanted to explore with Skalli is the idea of how true that story telling is," he said.

Rogers said creating the artwork based on mythology and folklore "plays with the idea of a tale about a creature from the river, interwoven in our sense of identity

"Skalli is a myth, a folklore, but is it real?" he mooted.

The annual UK-wide competition, now in its third year, is managed by Liverpool Business Improvement District (BID) and Liverpool Parish Church with the winner awarded £2,500 along with the public display.

Rogers said he was "delighted" to be named this year's Liverpool Sculpture Priz winner.

Rogers was selected by a panel which included Rector of Liverpool Fr Philip Anderson, Curator at DuoVision James Lawler, art critic and writer from the Double Negative Laura Robertson, James Minshull from Taylor Wessing, Ben Stephenson, current winner of Liverpool Sculpture Prize and Joanna Rowlands from Liverpool Experience Campus.

Katie Bentley from Liverpool BID called it "really eye-catching" and said she was "looking forward to seeing people's reactions to it".

The artwork will be on display on the plinth at St Nicholas Church, Chapel Street for the next 12 months.

A sculpture crafted using an ancient construction technique and inspired by the sand dune landscape off the Wirral coast won the Liverpool Sculpture Prize last year.

Previous winners included a statue which was designed to encourage people to reflect on the conflict in Ukraine - The Boy with Knife Carnation, and a gannet tangled in plastic waste which had been collected on Merseyside and Guernsey beaches during lockdown - to highlight sea pollution.

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