Over the next couple of weeks, I will be devoting several posts to Cardiff public art. You would think, as this type of art is plonked in areas so accessible to the public, that people would take more notice of it than other forms of art. However I find that we’ve become so accustomed to public art, that they have practically become invisible.

In fact many of the piece that I will be showcasing over the next couple of weeks, I came across completely by accident. As I did with the focus of this post.

I like Bute Park, in the centre of Cardiff, it gives you an escape from the hustle and bustles of urban life. So after a particularly stressful week, I decided to go for a walk. The park is naturally beautiful, so I didn’t go out in the search for a piece to write about, I inevitably stumbled across something that caught my interest.

Poking out of the ground I saw… a head! Thankfully, not anything you may hear about in the newspaper or on the news. This was what I could only describe as a massive boars head with Spock ears, I later found out it was a warthog known as Pumba. Made from material found in the park it looks as though the ground itself had spat out this monster pig.

This discovery led me to find a number of wood carvings dotted about the park. These sculptures were part of the Bute Park Restoration Project which it is hoped will encourage children to explore and play in the park. Subjects include a large frog, a stag beetle, an otter and fish.

The sculptures are the work of wood carver, Tom Harvey. After studying fine art and working for a few years in forestry and tree surgery, Mr Harvey decided to take up wood carving as a profession. He used a chainsaw and chisel to create these larger than life sculptures out fallen tree trunks.

Mr Harvey’s website said: “Whilst working in this way (often in public places on very large visible sculptures) can be unnerving as it is hard to turn back on decisions made, the artist feels that this process of discovery makes the creation of the sculptures all the more exciting and intuitive.”