A five metre high bronze tree by Scottish artist Charles Avery has been unveiled at Edinburgh's Waverley Station as the city's visual arts festival opens to the public.
The tree, which is Avery's first public sculpture, is one of seven commissions in the Edinburgh Art Festival, which opens today with more than 40 exhibitions across the city in 30 of the city's museums, galleries and other spaces.
The tree, which is not permanent but will be in place for the duration of the festival, cost around £60,000 to build and will be shown in London after Edinburgh.
It is being presented alongside the Oban-born artist's new exhibition at the nearby Ingleby Gallery, The People and Things of Onomatopoeia, part of his on-going project The Islanders.
Avery said he hoped the tree would be a "meeting point" or a place for momentary contemplation, an architectural addition to the train station as much as a work of art.
The festival, the youngest of the Edinburgh festivals at 12 years old, is now the UK's largest annual festival of visual arts, registering 300,000 attendances last year.
Other commissions include an installation in the debating chamber of the Old Royal High School by British artist Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, a prototype of an underwater ship designed to facilitate communication with dolphins and whales by acclaimed Mexican artist Ariel Guzik and a series of new commissions by young international artists, including Finnish-English artist, composer and vocalist Hanna Tuulikki, Irish video artist Emma Finn; and French-Canadian performance, installation and video artist, Julie Favreau at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
"The tree is a beautiful piece, it is his first public sculpture and his biggest too," said Sorcha Carey, the director of the festival.
"It is more than a work of art, Charles Avery wanted it to me a meeting place, a place for people to hang out."
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