Canada. Goldsworthy’s favourite places for creating
art are: the North Pole, Japan, and the Australian
outback, Missouri and of course where he lives now
Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
Andy Goldsworthy uses materials he finds where his
art is created.
He uses twigs, leaves, stones, snow and ice, reeds
and thorns. Most
of his work demonstrates the short life and
extraordinary sense of
play and of place. Andy describes his work as
“A collaboration with
nature.”
The shapes he uses from raw materials are basic
spiral, circle, cone, arch, column, sphere and
lines. He puts nature in art and art in nature by
including boulders and trees. Sometimes he makes
his art play with nature by making it hang from trees.
Some of his designs use light and shadow.
All have an effect around the area where his
finished sculptures are placed.
An example of his work is when he gathered coloured
leaves and ‘thorned’ them to a supporting branch
creating a subtle rainbow. We realize that leaves are
more than green, yellow, red and brown. The
different colours, remind us how the sun creates the
leaves and the life. Goldsworthy is constantly
reminding people to look, recognise and realize the
connections between life, nature
and the elements.
Andy Goldsworthy has photographs taken of his art
that he has included in a book. Without the
photographs he has no evidence that he created such
art. Andy’s quality sculptures show a strong sense of
place. For example his work is usually ice arches
along a frozen riverbank, twigs wrapped around
stones, leaves creating bridges between the trunks of
trees, these are all photographed and put in his
books. Book publication is the most important part of
Goldsworthy’s work as it shows the design brief, the
product itself and what happened to nature and the
art a few months later. Each publication is a work of
art in its own right.
Goldsworthy is a wonderful role model for children
particularly because of the sensitivity to nature and
the environment. He rarely uses living plant materials
in his sculptures, and does not intend his art to last as
long as the materials themselves. For example ice
sculptures are allowed to melt, leaves to fall from
their thorn supports and twigs to fall as they would
naturally.
Goldsworthy has many important statements here are
some of them:
“Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the
lifeblood of nature when I work with a leaf, rock,
stick, it is not just the material itself, it is an opening
into the processes of life within and around it. When I
leave it, these processes continue.”
“Some of my sculptures last days or seconds. The
importance lies in the making of the piece.”
“Hand to Earth.”
