Artists behind Jupiter Artland installations shortlisted for Dame Muriel Spark statue

Laura Ford, who created Weeping Girls at the outdoor gallery, has been shortlisted alongside Tania Kovats, the artist behind Rivers – as well as Louise Gibson and Jacqueline Donatchie – to create the statue of the Edinburgh-born author.

Following the open call for submissions, 54 entries from artists across the UK, Europe, North and South America and Asia were received. The Judging Panel includes writer Jackie Kay, sculptor and Muriel Spark’s long-term companion, Penelope Jardine, along with eminent figures from the worlds of visual arts, public art commissioning and heritage architecture.

Ms Ford, originally from Wales, has exhibited at the Venice Biennale as well as creating the five, faceless, Weeping Girls sculptures for Jupiter Artland. Ms Kovats created Rivers for the outdoor sculpture park, which consists of one hundred specimens of water from one hundred different rivers around the British Isles, collected, distilled and the stored in one hundred sealed jars and placed inside a constructed boathouse.

Scottish artist Ms Gibson, who graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2009 and now divides her work between Glasgow and Edinburgh, had a solo show of monumental sculpture at The Edinburgh Art Festival last year and has exhibited at festival Glasgow International. Meanwhile, Glasgow-based Ms Donatchie has exhibited at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow and Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery and participated in Glasgow Slow Down, a public event for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games cultural programme.

The shortlisted artists were invited to Scotland to see the proposed site in the gardens, while they were also shown a selection of artefacts from Dame Muriel’s archive at the National Library of Scotland. The curators also selected several iconic images of Muriel Spark throughout her life which demonstrated the “chameleonic nature of her appearance and her quixotic character”.

Ms Jardine said artists should be directed to produce a work that “renders [Dame Muriel’s] spirit.”

All the shortlisted artists, who are based in the UK, have exhibited internationally and have strong links to Scotland.

Spark’s 22 novels, including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, have helped shape modern literature and inspired readers worldwide.

Shortlisted artists will receive a concept design fee and will spend the next two months developing a proposal in the next stage of the competition, which is fully funded by long-standing Edinburgh philanthropists Morag and James Anderson. It is expected that the judging panel will reach their final decision in July. The successful artist will then enter a detailed design stage which is due to complete in autumn 2026.

Up to £100,000 has been allocated for the creation, fabrication and installation of the final work, which it is expected will be completed by autumn 2027.

Commissioner Morag Anderson said: “It was not the stated intention of the judging panel to produce an all-women shortlist.

“Nevertheless, given that this artwork will be the first permanent memorial to a woman in the 200-year history of Princes Street Gardens, there is perhaps an added dimension that echoes Muriel Spark who is widely celebrated for putting women centre stage in her novels.”