World famous artist Antony Gormley, whose sculpture DOUBT is on loan to Wells Cathedral until March 2023, gave a mesmerising talk to the CHATS audience at Cedars Hall in Wells on Sunday, April 3.

Despite recently suffering a leg injury he insisted on making the trip in order not to disappoint the citizens of Wells. He was accompanied by his wife, Vicken Parsons, who is herself an artist painting mostly in oils, and also a sculptor, with works displayed in Tate Britain.

Before the talk Antony Gormley signed copies of a new and updated edition of the definitive monograph on his career by Martin Caiger-Smith and was presented with a drawing of DOUBT entitled "Blockman and Friend " drawn by seven-year-old William du Plessis, a pupil at Bowlish Infant School in Shepton Mallet. William made the drawing during a trip to Wells Cathedral in February '22, as part of the educational outreach programme funded by CHATS and Project Factory.

A packed auditorium, and many viewers of the livestream, heard Antony Gormley in conversation with Professor Stephen Bann, Emeritus Professor of History of Art at the University of Bristol. Antony asked the question "What can sculpture do for us? How can the sculpture of today have a conversation with the past?" In answer he looked back to the industrial revolution, where heavy industry exploited the relationship between man and material, and in so doing changed the world. We are now dealing with the consequences in terms of climate change. Auguste Rodin is the sculptor who created The Age of Bronze, a bronze figure with closed eyes which invites the viewer to empathise with the figure, rather than spectate upon it as was previously the case.

For Gormley it is a 'hinge' linking the past with the present. It is well known that much of his work is based on plaster casts made from his own body.

"I made the first work in 1980 using my own body as a subject and I never thought I would still be doing it today. Plaster moulds capture a lived moment of human time in a carapace, and then the release from it. What I try to show is the space where the body was, not to represent the body itself."

Speaking about the siting of the iron sculpture on the West Front of Wells Cathedral he says: "It was an extraordinary privilege, but also a pleasure, to think of how one might continue the conversation, after rather a long hiatus, with what must be the finest and largest collection of thirteenth century sculpture in this country if not in Europe, and to do it in a meaningful way."

Of the work itself he says: "How would you feel separated from the ground on a windy corner of a stone building? I wanted the work to bring something actual in this context of a medieval hierarchy of heaven and hell. I think that the notion of redemption, of states between grace and sin, has to be put aside in a time when each of us is connected to the entire history of our species through our computers. We are only going to survive if we take responsibility for our actions, and that means making our own morality. Doubt for me is the engine of Truth, and we each have to make our own Truth."

After answering questions from the audience Antony Gormley concluded by saying: "I'd just like to say that Wells is an extraordinary place, full of the imaginative objects of the past. If we think of DOUBT as this tiny thing that reanimates the whole of the West Front in some way, the fact that through CHATS and Project Factory who make these forums happen we can come together and talk about the representation of the world that we make for ourselves, is really inspiring. I want to thank Project Factory and this brilliant idea to get live chat to reanimate history."

The next talk in the CHATS series at Cedars Hall will be on Friday, May 20: The Story of The Ashmolean in 10 Objects by Dr Xa Sturgis, Director of The Ashmolean, Oxford. Tickets from cedarshall.events.