Sculpture of extinct wild ox takes centre stage in exhibition at Derbyshire visitor attraction

Sally Matthews puts the finishing touches to her Auroch sculpture.

Sculptor Sally Matthews has crafted the huge 7ft tall, 11.5 feet long Auroch, an extinct beast, for the National Stone Centre, Wirksworth, where it will be on show until September 11, 2022.

Sally said: “Creating the Auroch involved working out its presence from skeletons, writings and images, including cave drawings. The last huge, wild, beautiful Auroch cow died in Poland in 1627. Hunting and loss of habitat caused their extinction but their shadow remains in their ancestors, domestic cattle, domesticated around 10,500 years ago.”

Her sculpture forms part of an exhibition, including photography and art, which explores how soil health and an area's underlying geology influences our daily lives and the biodiversity around us.

Wild ox sculpture at the beginning of its journey to the National Stone Centre.

The show also features Sally’s anatomically accurate scale sculpture of a Cave Hyena in the same form as the Auroch, plus a collection of her wildlife drawings in ash, earth and charcoal.

Derbyshire based photographer Kate Bellis is the curator of the exhibition titled ‘EarthBound - The Story of Connected Life through Rock, Earth and Community’. She said: “The aim of EarthBound is to make us pause for breath a little, and think that our future survival may well depend on us having a deeper understanding and respect for the incredible life, micro-organisms and fungal networks that hold our planet in balance. The smallest things can have the biggest impact for our survival as a species, we have learned this the hard way over the last few years.

“EarthBound will hopefully make us think a little more about the hidden story written in our rocks and the earth under our feet, the life there now and in the layered history of rock and earth, above and below, how we are all connected to this continuing story.”

Fellow Derbyshire photographer Alex Hyde, who has collaborated with Kate and Sally on the initiative, added: “The Earthbound team is truly grateful for the amazing support for the project from our partners at Longcliffe Quarries Ltd, through EarthBound's initial conception and evolution and on to its fruition in 2022.”As part of the EarthBound project, Derbyshire schools and community groups were given a rare opportunity to see the natural world in minute detail in workshops at the NSC. A scanning electron microscope was made available courtesy of a loan from the Hitachi High-Tech America STEM Educational Outreach Programme, with support from the Royal Microscopical Society, Oxford Instruments, The Institute for Research in Schools, Hitachi High-Tech Europe, and the Natural History Museum. `