On a typical autumn day, Andy Goldsworthy can be found in the woods near his home in Penpont, Scotland, maybe cloaking a fallen tree branch with a tapestry of yellow and brown elm leaves, or, in a rainstorm, lying on a rock until the dry outline of his body materializes as a pale shadow on the moist surface. Come winter, he might be soldering icicles into glittering loops or star bursts with his bare fingers. Because he works outdoors with natural materials, Goldsworthy is sometimes portrayed as a modern Druid; really, he is much closer to a latter-day Impressionist. Like those 19th-century painters, he is obsessed with the way sunlight falls and flickers, especially on stone, water and leaves. Monet—whose painting of a sunrise gave the Impressionist movement its name—used oil paint to reveal light's transformative power in his series of canvases of haystacks, the Rouen Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament. Goldsworthy is equally transfixed with the magical effect of natural light. Only he has discovered another, more elemental way to explore it.
As a fine arts student at Preston Polytechnic in northern England, Goldsworthy, now 49, disliked working indoors. He found escape nearby at Morecambe Bay, where he began constructing temporary structures that the incoming tide would collapse. Before long, he realized that his artistic interests were tied more closely to his youthful agricultural labors in Yorkshire than to life classes and studio work. The balanced boulders, snow arches and leaf-rimmed holes that he crafted were his versions of the plein-air sketches of landscape artists. Instead of representing the landscape, however, he was drawing on the landscape itself.
Throughout the 20th century, artists struggled with the dilemma of Modernism: how to convey an experience of the real world while acknowledging the immediate physical reality of the materials—the two-dimensional canvas, the viscous paint—being used in the representation. Goldsworthy has cut his way clear. By using the landscape as his material, he can illustrate aspects of the natural world—its color, mutability, energy—without resorting to mimicry. Although he usually works in rural settings, his definition of the natural world is expansive. "Nature for me isn't the bit that stops in the national parks," he says. "It's in a city, in a gallery, in a building. It's everywhere we are."
Goldsworthy's principal artistic debt is to "Land Art," an American movement of the 1960s that took Pollock's and de Kooning's macho Abstract Expressionism out of the studio to create giant earthworks such as Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake of Utah or Michael Heizer's Double Negative in Nevada. Unlike Smithson and Heizer, however, Goldsworthy specializes in the ephemeral. A seven-foot-long ribbon of red poppy petals that he stuck together with saliva lasted just long enough to be photographed before the wind carried it off. His leaves molder, his ice arabesques melt. One work in which he took special joy, a sort of bird's nest of sticks, was intended to evoke a tidal whirlpool; when the actual tide carried it into the water, its creator marveled as it gyrated toward destruction. The moment was captured in Rivers and Tides, a documentary film by Thomas Riedelsheimer that portrayed Goldsworthy at work and underscored the centrality of time to his art.
Even those stone stacks and walls that he intends to last for a long time are conceived in a very different spirit from the bulldozing Land Art of the American West. An endearing humility complements his vast ambition. "There are occasions when I have moved boulders, but I'm reluctant to, especially ones that have been rooted in a place for many years," he says, noting that when he must do so, he looks "for ones on the edge of a field that had been pulled out of the ground by farming. The struggle of agriculture, of getting nourishment from the earth, becomes part of the story of the boulder and of my work."
The modesty in his method is matched by a realism in his demands. He knows that nothing can or should last forever. Once a piece has been illuminated by the perfect light or been borne away by the serendipitous wave, he gratefully bids it a fond farewell.
my daughter hs been studying this "art" at school and I can only laugh, art? you decide
Posted by dean thomas on December 3,2007 | 10:38AM
Please don't be so quick to dismiss Mr. Goldsworthy or your daughter. I believe that if you allow yourself to be open to what your daughter sees in this art you may come to view the world differently.
Posted by E.Endicott on January 5,2008 | 07:09PM
Andy is inspirational with natural materials. I work with under fives and would welcome his input to inspire the young children I work with, many from vulnerable backgrounds. Many of the young children have no opportunity to experience natural materials with the pleasure of outdoor experiences of play, feeling free and connected to the natural world. Where I work has a blank, bland outdoor canvas. My plea is ANDY CAN YOU HELP ME?
Posted by anna shaw on February 3,2008 | 03:20PM
Non permanent, non intrusive and non pollutant. What a way to go. Andy is inspirational and I think more people should get closer to nature in all facets of life. As an ephemeral artist, I also like the fact that there is no storage problems with regard to collections or unsold work. I would love to accompany Andy on a project and spend time to learn more about this kind of sculpting. Hayley
Posted by hayley on February 10,2008 | 07:39PM
I find Andy to be inspirational not only because he can use the natural resources that the Earth has provided him with to create some of the most beautiful things that many of us have ever seen, but a lot of the things that he makes will ultimately be destroyed by nature itself and the fact that he knows that and he continues to make the things he does makes him as inspirational as he does.
Posted by Shelby on February 22,2008 | 11:16AM
I am dismayed at the air of disregard in one of the previous comments toward Goldsworthy's work and the idea of it being studied by others (children, in this case; according to the comment). As an introduction to Mr. Goldsworthy's work I often ask my students to consider their motivation for designing and building a snowman or sandcastle. 'Why,' I ask, 'would you spend your time (hours, often), your thought and energy crafting something that you know is ephemeral?' The answers these 7th graders provide are a clear validation of this type of art. They range from the practical ("To pass the time doing something constructive.") to the playful ("To enjoy nature and our surroundings while with friends.") to the philosophical and aesthetic ("To create something 'awesome' with our own hands and be proud of our accomplishment of a job well done") Of course, not everyone responds positively to every type of art, but I feel that a creation which exudes good craftsmanship, integrity, determination and aesthetic sense, in addition to one that others view with genuine interest, could be judged less harshly.
Posted by Paige on February 29,2008 | 05:47PM
I agree with Paige, who is to say he isn't an artist. Dean Thomas must learn to CRITIQUE art and not CRITICIZE it- otherwise you are just wasting words. Say something meaningful that conveys your opinion, not something mean.
Posted by KK on March 15,2008 | 06:04PM
I don't know much about art, but wouldn't he be a sculptor?
Posted by Julian Shaw on March 31,2008 | 06:50PM
And is a sculptor not an artist then?
Posted by Jeanette Everson on April 6,2008 | 05:52AM
What a shame that Mr. Thomas doesn't appreciate or understand Andy Goldsworthy's ART, or maybe even nature itself. I fortunately live near the Yorkshire sculpture park and had the good fortune to visit his recent exhibition there, 3 times, because i enjoyed it that much. If you get the chance Mr. Thomas, please take your daughter to see his work next time he's around, it was an amazing experience also for my friend's and family.
Posted by Sharon Harrison on April 9,2008 | 04:34AM
To understand Andy through his own words and works please watch the film "Rivers and Tides". He is absolutely driven and consumed with creating in all kinds of outdoor environments. I have a love for the woodlands, streams, and seashores and for me Andy interprets the pattern and the "river of life" that I sensed was there but could not see until I was introduced to it through his work.
Posted by Pam Laster on April 26,2008 | 07:30PM
I seriously think that andy Golsworthy is amazing, im doing an assignment on him at school and wow, his works are just great hes just so original in all of the work that he does, he truely is fantastic!a true artist of originality, ive never see work like this before especially in urban and natural places! its just great, keep up the awesome work Andy, and to all who are reading this, JESUS LOVES YOU! :)
Posted by yabby on May 17,2008 | 09:17PM
Yew! :)
Posted by Lenny jam on May 17,2008 | 09:18PM
My daughter (Bulgarian) wrote her MA Thesis in History of Arts on Andy Goldsworthy's outdoor inventions, and it was not only very successful at the Berlin University, where she defended it, but was also translated and published in Bulgaria's unique World Art Events Magazine "LIK". People in Bulgaria tend to appreciate art in nature, as most of them are tought from pre-school that Nature is sublime Art. I deeply respectful and indebted to Mr. Goldsworthy. Mariana Melnishka, free-lance art reviewer
Posted by Mariana Melnishka on June 9,2008 | 03:58AM
i am a school student in yr 8 and i am studying andy goldsworthy for a school assignment. i really do think that he is a very creative artist/sculptor(?) his works are really quite fantastic!
Posted by Jacinda on June 18,2008 | 02:54AM