Andy Goldsworthy (born July 26, 1956) is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist living in Scotland who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings.

His art involves the use of natural and found objects, to create both temporary and permanent sculptures which draw out the character of their environment. Some of the materials used in his art often include brightly-colored flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs, and thorns.

For his ephemeral works, Goldsworthy often uses only his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to prepare and arrange the materials. “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.”

Goldsworthy believes that 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.”

“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.”

Goldsworthy states that the underlying tension of a lot of his art is to try and look through the surface appearance of things.  He says that “Inevitably, one way of getting beneath the surface is to introduce a hole, a window into what lies below.”

That hole can represent so many different meanings for so many different people.  It is a vast darkness; a void of sorts. It can be the beginning or the end or it can stand for the entire circle of life.  The magic not only lies in his colorful, natural art but also in the black circle of imagination and illusion.

If you are interested in learning more about the art of Land Art, you should check out my previous post, Living Art. Find some inspiration, motivation, or just appreciation in the work of these talented artists!