Verity

At 66' 5" tall, the statue Verity, which dominates the harbour entrance in Ilfracombe, Devon, is (apparently deliberately) 10 inches taller than Antony Gormley's 1998 Angel of the North. Yet whilst the Angel is uplifting, the truth of Verity is that although she's impressive in a monumental fashion, she's also unsubtle, obvious and brash, like most of Damian Hirst's work.

Weighing in at 24.6 tons, the statue was created in 2012. It is a variant of traditional representations of Justice, usually presented blindfold and holding aloft the sword of truth and holding out the eponymous scales of her calling. This Justice is pregnant. Whilst she brandishes the traditional sword, the scales are held behind her, at half cock.

Standing upon a tumble of law books, Verity is complete one side, but flayed and sectioned the other, the skull and foetus both visible. Both the representation and the stance, the latter supposedly a reference to Edgar Degas's c.1881 statue Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, are similar to those of Hirst's 2005 statue, The Virgin Mother.

The statue was cast, in multiple sections of bronze, which are affixed to a stainless steel frame, by the Pangolin Editions foundry of Stroud. The sword, and the upper part of the arm holding this, are of one piece of fibreglass. When installed the statue was the tallest in the UK, a record now held by Falkirk's The Kelpies. It has been loaned to Ilfracombe for 20 years.