Spencer Byles is an English sculptor who settled with his family in La Colle-sur-Loup, a hillside village inland from Nice in southern France, and spent about a year making large sculptures in the wild woodland around it. The project, called A Year in a French Forest, produced more than twenty pieces spread across forests near La Colle-sur-Loup, Villeneuve-Loubet and Mougins: rings, nests, spirals, hanging pods and tunnels woven from branches, bark and other material gathered on the spot.
The sculptures are not on a map. Byles deliberately keeps their locations private to limit the impact of visitors on the forest, so the only way to stumble on one is to walk the woods. They were also never meant to last. Each piece is slowly reclaimed by weather, insects and new growth, and the photographs below are records of how they looked at one stage in that process.
Here is how he worked, what the images show, and how the project fits into the wider tradition of land art.
How Spencer Byles worked
Byles had been making sculptures from found materials in forests on and off for around ten years before this project. This time he wanted to commit to one long body of work and document every piece properly in photographs.
After getting permission to work in the forests, he spent roughly three months scouting and preparing, choosing more than twenty sites with distinct character and plenty of fallen wood nearby. He did not work from drawings or fixed designs. Instead he responded to each place as he found it, often with around twenty sculptures in progress at the same time, and used only simple hand tools.
Most of the material is natural: branches, saplings, bark, stone and earth. But the forests also held traces of people, and he folded those in. Old handmade nails, keys, wire and rope left behind by farmers and flower growers turned up on site and became part of some pieces, which is why it is more accurate to call the materials “found” than strictly organic.
He chose not to title the works or explain them. In his own words, “I prefer not to share my thoughts in regards to what each sculpture represents to me.” Visitors are left to find their own meaning.
Rings, wheels and portals
Circles are the strongest recurring shape in the series. In a forest of vertical trunks, a ring catches the eye immediately and frames whatever lies behind it.
A single woven ring hangs in mid-air between two trunks, apparently suspended from the canopy. Against the mass of green leaves it works almost like a lens. Its rough, bird’s-nest texture comes from hundreds of thin branches wrapped around one another.
A large woven wheel hangs inside a timber frame, its strands trailing down to the ground like roots. The structure stands in a stony clearing under a dramatic sky. The combination of a carefully built frame and loose, falling material is typical of Byles’s approach.
The same type of framed wheel seen from further away, in scrubby Mediterranean woodland of pines and low bushes. The wider view shows how a sculpture sits in its landscape rather than in front of it. From a distance it could almost be mistaken for some old piece of rural equipment.
Two views of a suspended wheel inside a wheel, with radiating spokes and a dense woven core. The close-up on the right reveals how intricate the weaving is. Hung from a crossbar between trees, it turns slightly with the wind.
A woven shell or wheel set on top of an old dry-stone terrace wall. Walls like this are remains of earlier farming on the hillsides, now overtaken by forest. Placing a sculpture there links the new work to the human history of the site.
A deep woven tunnel with a dark, spiky sphere hanging inside, and the artist himself crouched beside it for scale. It is one of the few photos that shows how big these structures are. The sphere appears to be made of short pieces of wood packed tightly together.
A huge ring standing upright on the forest floor, with a smaller ring visible further along the path. Looking through one to the other creates a sense of depth and invitation. It is a simple idea, executed at a scale that makes it feel like a gateway.
Spirals, pods and growing forms
Other pieces borrow shapes from nature itself: seed pods, cocoons, twisting stems and the spiral patterns found in shells and sunflowers.
A spiral of reddish wooden pieces arranged like petals or scales inside a rough arched frame. The warm colour stands out sharply against the dark woodland. The pattern recalls the way seeds are arranged in a flower head.
A related spiral in grey, weathered wood, mounted in a similar frame on top of a limestone outcrop. Comparing it with the reddish version shows how the same idea changes with different materials. The natural rock base makes it look as if it grew there.
Tall, tapering woven pods stand on the ground and hang from the branches above, like giant seed cases or cocoons. Their teardrop shape repeats from floor to canopy. They show Byles working with the vertical space of the forest as well as the ground.
Left, a column of twisted bark and branches wrapped around a slim tree, rising like a flame. Right, a woven arch whose base spreads out across the ground like roots. Both play with the idea of a sculpture growing out of the forest rather than being placed in it.
A spidery construction of long, curving branches, with small pointed objects dangling from it on threads. Darker and stranger than most of the series, it looks almost like a creature. It is a good example of why Byles leaves interpretation to the viewer.
Four woven wreaths set against an old stone wall, each framing a reddish object at its centre. The repetition gives the piece the feel of a small shrine or a row of medallions. It is one of the clearest examples of a work built around the man-made features of the site.
A sculpture that is meant to disappear
Byles has called the experience a dream, with only minor irritations: mosquitoes, the heat of July and August, and winter rain, which he dealt with by putting up canopy shelters. The real challenge, he said, was being alone in the forest day after day for over a year. He describes himself as a sociable person, so the solitude was difficult at first, but he came to value the long, quiet days. He still lived with his family in the village throughout; the isolation was in the working days, not in where he lived.
The temporary nature of the work is central to it. He has talked about the forest as a living environment that never stops changing: “You are witness to both the growing and dying back of all the plants and trees.” A sculpture built from fallen wood begins to decay as soon as it is finished, and plants start to grow through it. Visiting the same piece over months would show it slowly turning back into forest.
Where this fits in land art
Byles’s forest pieces belong to a long tradition of art made outdoors from natural materials, often called land art or environmental art. Artists such as Andy Goldsworthy, also from Britain, have built careers on works that are photographed and then left to change or vanish. The photograph becomes the lasting record, while the object itself returns to the landscape.
What makes A Year in a French Forest distinctive is its secrecy and scale: dozens of large works, scattered across three forests, with no signs and no map. If you walk in the hills behind the Côte d’Azur, it is worth remembering that these woods are private and protected places. Respect access rules and leave anything you find exactly as it is.
More of the project can be seen on Byles’s blog, which also lists sculptures he has made in Japan, Borneo and elsewhere.
Sources: Sculptures by Spencer Byles; photographs credited on the artist’s blog to Lionel Bouffier and Leo Fry. A Year in a French Forest (artist’s blog); Spencer Byles on Facebook; All That’s Interesting interview; Street Musicians Festival artist profile.
COMMENTS