A LLANRHAEADR YM art foundry is hard at work on the biggest project in its history.

Castle Arts Foundry director Chris Jones told how work is progressing on the Messenger, the biggest sculpture bronze sculpture in the UK at 23ft, which is set to be installed at Theatre Plymouth as part of a £7million pound regeneration project.

"It's the biggest project we've ever worked on, and it's gone through every single person that we have," he said.

"It's been a huge team effort by everyone and that's one of the things we're most proud of, the team spirit."

Mr Jones said that the biggest challenge with the Messenger project was "the sheer scale of it relative to the facility that we've got".

"Overall, it'll probably weigh about nine and a half tonne and it's seven metres high so it's the size of a house, so a lot of the challenges with it are logistical in terms of the scale of it, the sheer amount of mould-making, waxes, the amount of casting that's gone into it and now with actually fabricating it it's actually moving the component parts around," he said.

"We're going to construct it and we're going to deconstruct it to ship it to site because it's too big to ship to suite in one [piece]."

The gargantuan artwork is set to be unveiled in front of the theatre on Royal Parade in Plymouth in Spring 2019.

Castle Fine Arts Foundry – which was previously based at Chirk Castle – has also tasked its staff Liverpool and Stroud to work on the project, which will have lasted 18 months by the time it is completed.

"I'm looking forward to when it's in, done and dusted – and the sense of pride for all of us to be able to make something that is going to be around for hundreds of years in such a prominent site is an amazing thing for a little business in a Welsh village,"Mr Jones said.

"It raises the profile and puts us in the public eye for sure, and that's a good thing."

Artist Joseph Hillier’s inspiration for the sculpture came from a split-second pose struck by an actor during rehearsals for Othello, Theatre Royal Plymouth’s award-winning and explosive co-production with Frantic Assembly in 2014.

The sculpture has been created using 3D scans taken from an actor poised before bursting forward into the choreographed chaos of the play.

"It's something I've really wanted to do as an artist because I've always make figurative sculpture, but I was interested in taking in directions that were new for me," he said.

"I was interested in working with performers because they use their bodies to communicate and that's what I do when I make sculpture of the human body, so we had that in common – but also they work very collaboratively, which is different to the way artists normally work.

"I really love that energy."

Mr Hillier told how he created his first piece with the foundry around 12 years ago.

"It's a brilliant foundry, lovely guys and they've done a fantastic job and I'm really pleased to be working with them again," he added.