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The Dragon of Pontypool
A dragon with furnaces and ironworks in its body watches over the route from Riverside Car Park into Pontypool. Around it, light-painting photographs made with young people and metal-foil relief work led by Kate Verity tell more of the town’s industrial story.
Location: Pontypool, Torfaen
Main mural: approximately 9 × 3 metres
Commissioned by: ArtREGEN Pontypool
My role: Artistic concept and mural painting; light-painting workshops; painting the companion panels
Participation partners: Torfaen Youth Service and West Mon School
Metal-foil workshops: Kate Verity
See how youth workshops became part of the artwork ↓
A dragon forged from industry
The design came out of my own doodles. I kept drifting towards the steel history of Torfaen, and it ended up as a flaming dragon, with the furnaces and the ironworks built into the body of the beast. It’s a nod to what the area was. I painted it over five days and put a lot into the glazing — I wanted the fierceness of the furnaces, the glow of the fire, the power of the dragon and the weight of the industrial history all in there.
More than the mural
It was more than the mural, though. I worked with Torfaen youth service, running light-painting sessions with young people at a youth club above the town. We dressed them as steelworkers — overalls, helmets, hammers, tools — and used long-exposure photography to draw fire and light around them, recreating the feel of a furnace. The point was not to run a workshop alongside the mural, but to generate imagery and atmosphere that could feed back into the public artwork and the route towards it.
Kate Verity worked with the Traveller community at West Mon School on metal-foil relief pieces — symbols of industry and of travelling culture, aged with black paint and scoured back so they look like ancient unearthed metal.
The resulting photographs and relief imagery were incorporated into companion panels along the approach from the car park. They build a sequence of stories and images that leads visitors towards the dragon mural.
ArtREGEN and The Light We Carry
The Dragon of Pontypool was commissioned by ArtREGEN Pontypool, which secured funding and permissions for the wider project. My role covered the dragon’s artistic concept and painting, the light-painting workshops and painting the companion panels; Kate Verity led the metal-foil relief work.
The dragon has subsequently been incorporated into The Light We Carry mural trail across Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent. That is a later connection: the original dragon was an ArtREGEN commission, and the trail now places it within a broader programme of public art, heritage and participation.
“A space that had previously been dark and dreary is now a welcoming and striking area.”
Jennie Simons, ArtREGEN trustee — quoted by Torfaen County Borough Council.
What stays with me
My favourite part is still the glow around the hands, where the steelworkers merge into the fire. It says everything I wanted it to about the strength of the people who worked that industry for years and forged the history of the town.
Further project context: Original project story and gallery ↗ · ArtREGEN Pontypool ↗ · The Light We Carry mural trail ↗ · Torfaen: Dragon mural extension and youth panels ↗
Flying Start — Blaenau Gwent