The Art of Andy Goldsworthy'

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The Art of Andy Goldsworthy.
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Andy GoldsworthyAndy Goldsworthy was born in
Cheshire in 1956 and was brought up in Yorkshire.
He studied at Bradford College of Art (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.
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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.
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Some recent sculpture has a more permanent
nature, being made in stone and placed in
locations far from its point of origin, as for
example Herd of Arches 1994. The series of chalk
Arches made at Sculpture at Goodwood in 1995 are
semi-permanent, given the fragility of the
material, and are now sited indoors at
Goldsworthy's studio in Dumfriesshire, to extend
their life
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Herd of Arches
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Quotes from Andy Goldsworthy I enjoy the freedom
of just using my hands and "found" tools--a sharp
stone, the quill of a feather, thorns. I take the
opportunities each day offers if it is snowing,
I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with
leaves a blown-over tree becomes a source of
twigs and branches. I stop at a place or pick up
a material because I feel that there is something
to be discovered. Here is where I can learn.   I
want to get under the surface. When I work with a
leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material
in itself, it is an opening into the processes of
life within and around it. When I leave it, these
processes continue.   Movement, change, light,
growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the
energies that I try to tap through my work. I
need the shock of touch, the resistance of place,
materials and weather, the earth as my source.
Nature is in a state of change and that change is
the key to understanding. I want my art to be
sensitive and alert to changes in material,
season and weather. Each work grows, stays,
decays. Process and decay are implicit.
Transience in my work reflects what I find in
nature.
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Looking, touching, material, place and form are
all inseparable from the resulting work. It is
difficult to say where one stops and another
begins. The energy and space around a material
are as important as the energy and space within.
The weather, rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm is
that external space made visible. When I touch a
rock, I am touching and working the space around
it. It is not independent of its surroundings,
and the way it sits tells how it came to be
there. 
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I want to get under the surface. When I work with
a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material
in itself, it is an opening into the processes of
life within and around it. When I leave it, these
processes continue.   Movement, change, light,
growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the
energies that I try to tap through my work. I
need the shock of touch, the resistance of place,
materials and weather, the earth as my source.
Nature is in a state of change and that change is
the key to understanding. I want my art to be
sensitive and alert to changes in material,
season and weather. Each work grows, stays,
decays. Process and decay are implicit.
Transience in my work reflects what I find in
nature.
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Childrens work inspired by Andy Goldsworthy.
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