You can put your hands on Toby Govan’s stone sculptures in Estepona until September 30

Scottish-born sculptor Toby Govan is back at Casa de las Tejerinas in Plaza de las Flores with Apogee: The Emergence of Being (Apogeo: La irrupcion del Ser), a free show that runs to 30 September 2026. Nearly thirty large carvings sit with about twenty smaller pieces. Govan wants you to handle them. That is the point of the visit, not a naughty extra.

Estepona Town Hall opened the collection with a recital by local flamenco singer Rocio Bazan. Govan has used this courtyard for several summers, and regulars know the house often keeps the terrace going later than the printed hours so people can wander after supper.

Why this Estepona sculptor wants you to touch the work

Born in Edinburgh in April 1967, Govan arrived in Spain as a small boy when his artist parents chased Andalucian light. They landed first in Torremolinos, then made Estepona home. He still calls himself an Estepona boy. Douglas Govan, his late father, taught him to “read the stone”: look at a block until a trunk, a shoulder or a wing appears, then cut along those lines rather than forcing a drawing onto the rock. Ann Govan, his mother and a watercolourist, taught him to see a composition in the world around him.

He trained at Granada’s School of Arts and Crafts and studied photography in Madrid, yet he still says his father’s workshop was the real college. Early backing from Sam Benady at Puerto Banus’s Sammer Gallery and designer Sandra Billington in Marbella gave him room to work at scale. Collectors in Spain, Britain, France, Germany and the United States now own pieces. Five monumental carvings sit in Estepona streets so anyone can run a hand over them: the elephant

La elefanta requetebien in Plaza Rocio Bazan, the 3.5-tonne En tus brazos in Plaza Paco de Lucia, El Ascenso at the athletics stadium, El abrazo a la cultura at Centro Cultural Padre Manuel, and Dragon al sol in Parque El Calvario.

Limestone from Ojen, Sierra Bermeja rock, Guadalmina river stones, serpentine, lapis lazuli, malachite and Afghan quartz all turn up in the current rooms. Forms sit between animal and abstract. Govan calls that biofigurative or ecofigurative. Last year’s joint show with French painter Serge Bouvier and the earlier Living Nature audio-tactile display already proved visitors like being told to touch. Apogee doubles down on that invitation.

Opening hours, late terrace viewing and how to find it

Doors run Tuesday to Saturday from 9am to 10.30pm and Sunday from 8pm to 10.30pm. Monday is closed. Staff at Casa de las Tejerinas often stretch those evening slots on the terrace when people are still arriving. Entry costs nothing.

Govan’s own notes and biography sit at tobygovan.com. Town listings and venue details are on the Ayuntamiento de Estepona site.

Go while September still has eleven days on the clock. Take the children. Let them put both hands on a two-tonne elephant and a pebble that fits in a palm. That is how Govan thinks stone should be met.