Dotted around Prescot (some time around the opening of Shakespeare North Playhouse) a handful of intriguing sculptures appeared through the town. They were familiar, but new, and a joyful addition to the town centre.
For years I’ve walked past them, or sat in the car alongside them and wondered over their origins.
And then, last week, we went to The Atkinson. Not particularly planning anything, we just thought we’d stop, maybe see Zahad Taj-Eddin’s show again, and stumbled into the other room. Brian and George Fell: Always Something New.
All of those sculptures you know inside and out, there, through the gallery, in maquette form or rehomed indoors, accompanied by stories and processes. The Prescot creatures, the Kirkby Elephant, and Desert Rat (who temporarily lit up the Baltic Triangle before finding its permanent home at Yorkshire Sculpture Park).
All here, making sense of the work of this father and son pair, whose sculpture is synonymous with so many parts of Merseyside.
The exhibition feels slightly too much like a list, scrolling through works, rather than truly celebrating everything about the artists and their process, but it’s an effective archive of their work to date, and a well deserved celebration that puts them at their heart of the story.
It’s all too easy to pass over when you discover public sculpture outside of galleries and sculpture parks. The archive took an opportunity to put the spotlight on two brilliant makers, and it’s well worth taking the time to get to know them.
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Brian & George Fell: Always Something New is open at The Atkinson until 17th November 2026
Words, Kathryn Wainwright
