Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland. The materials used in Andy Goldsworthy's art often include brightly coloured flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs, and thorns. He has been quoted as saying, "I think it's incredibly brave to be working with flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole."
Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland. The materials used in Andy Goldsworthy's art often include brightly coloured flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs, and thorns. He has been quoted as saying, "I think it's incredibly brave to be working with flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole."
For his ephemeral works, Goldsworthy often uses only his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to prepare and arrange the materials; however, for his permanent he has employed the use of machine tools. Goldsworthy regards his creations as transient, or ephemeral. He photographs each piece once right after he makes it. His goal is to understand nature by directly participating in nature as intimately as he can. He generally works with whatever comes to hand: twigs, leaves, stones, snow and ice, reeds and thorns.
His intention is not to “make his mark” on the landscape, but rather to work with it instinctively, so that a delicate screen of bamboo or massive snow rings or a circle of leaves floating in a pool create a new perception and an ever-growing understanding of the land. His work is very complex in structure, execution and artistry, but is still reinforced by the same idea of being in the moment, experimenting with what’s on hand and then releasing it to time. This is a very powerful, difficult position for an artist. The emotional and sometimes physical energy it takes him to create his works makes it painful to let it go. This is the foundation of all his work, which makes it even more beautiful and the generosity all of it more profound.
Goldsworthy rearranges the things we dismissively crunch beneath our shoes, into spectacular arrangements that showcase their beauty. When you see his work you feel like you’ve been missing a lot of obvious things around you. We live in a world where the goal is always to create things of lastingness and stability. We like to keep objects for a long time and we often give no thought to their ultimate fate. We’re super concerned that we may face inconvenience if our objects are meant to be temporary from the start. Andy Goldsworthy embraces this as the reality of his work