Andy Goldsworthy is an environmental sculptor in which his use of the natural surroundings create an art form. He explores and experiments with various natural materiel such as leaves, grasses, stones, wood, sand, clay, ice, and snow. The seasons and weather determine the materials and the subject matter of his projects.
With no preconceived ideas about what he will create, Goldsworthy relies on what nature will give him. Goldsworthy “feels” the energy from nature and transcends that energy into an art form.
“At its most successful, my ‘touch’ looks into the heart of nature; most days I don’t even get close. These things are all part of a transient process that I cannot understand unless my touch is also transient-only in this way can the cycle remain unbroken and the process be complete.” Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire in 1956 and was brought up in Yorkshire. He studied at Bradord College (1974-75) and Preston Polytechnic (1975-78).
After leaving college Goldsworthy lived in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. He moved over the border to Langholm, Dumfriesshire, in 1985 and to Penpont one year later. This gradual drift northwards was due to a way of life over which he did not have complete control. However, contributing factors were opportunities and desires to work in these areas and reasons of economy.
Throughout his career most of Goldsworthy’s work has been made in the open air, in places as diverse as the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, Grize Fiord in the Northern Territories of Canada, the North Pole, Japan, the Australian outback, St Louis, Missouri and Dumfriesshire. The materials he uses are those to hand in the remote locations he visits: twigs, leaves, stones, snow and ice, reeds and thorns. Most works are ephemeral but demonstrate, in their short life, Goldsworthy’s extraordinary sense of play and of place.
The works are recorded as photographs. Book publication is an important aspect of Andy Goldsworthy’s work: showing all aspects of the production of a given work, each publication is a work of art in its own right.
