Sculpting Tranquility

Wrexham based chainsaw carver, Simon O’Rourke, famous for creating the Giant Hand of Vyrnwy is the central character in this beautiful documentary film made about the creation of a 5m long, fire breathing dragon, with a 5m wingspan, carved from the trunk of a single tree. Produced and directed by Rakha Singh, whose feature film, The Killing of John Lennon was nominated for a BAFTA award, and narrated by world-famous Welsh actor, Dame Siân Philips, this twenty-minute film tells the story of how Simon was commissioned to carve the dragon by Arfon Hardy, a man whose life had been altered radically after a surgeon made a catastrophic error during an operation, leaving him paralysed from the waist down. Now, wheelchair bound, Arfon wanted to create something extraordinary for his new life in the garden of his home in Gwernymynydd, near the town of Mold in Wales. He saw some of Simon O’Rourke’s work and immediately commissioned him to build the fire breathing dragon, which he named Tranquility (Llonwddych) and which will be in flight, wings outstretched, mounted above the water in the middle of the lake in his garden. Using AI animation and Siân Philips’ narration, the film reveals the dragon in flight, soaring in the sky before becoming captivated by the moonlight on Arfon’s lake below. A background soundscape was developed using a specially created hurdy-gurdy. The film follows Simon from the beginning of the commissioning process to the final installation of the dragon and the climax of its first ‘flight’. The tree used for the carving, a Blue Atlas Cedar, had suffered dieback - a disease which meant the tree needed to be felled. For this project, Simon used a range of chainsaws from smaller battery saws up to a 95cc saw with a 3ft bar. The process was made more complex due to the dragon’s flame breathing.