Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy, OBEis a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionSculptor
Date of Birth26 July 1956
thinking race ice
There's a huge number of things that are occurring with the ice works which fascinate me enormously, but it's driven by this kind of frantic race against time. And whilst that creates a huge amount of tension and problems, it's a tension that I think I feed off.
stones heat bigs
I soon realised that what had happened on a small scale cannot necessarily be repeated on a larger scale. The stones were so big that the amount of heat required was prohibitively expensive and wasteful.
important trying stones
When I’m working with materials it’s not just the leaf or the stone, it’s the processes that are behind them that are important. That’s what I’m trying to understand, not a single isolated object but nature as a whole.
thinking weather forever
I think I have been fashioned by the fickle weather of Britain that it is - it's forever changing. There's no kind of constant sun or dry weather or freezing weather, and I'm always having to change and adapt to that.
summer nature powerful
Occasionally I have come across a last patch of snow on top of a mountain in late May or June. There's something very powerful about finding snow in summer.
people sculpture movement
I am not a performer but occasionally I deliberately work in a public context. Some sculptures need the movement of people around them to work.
ice wind snow
I have to understand the nature of change. And I cannot just work with stone or the more permanent materials. I need to work with leaves and ice and snow and mud and clay and water and the rising tide and the wind and all these.
thinking potatoes different
A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it. It is different than patience. It is not thinking. It is working with the rhythm.
beauty pain
Beauty is what sustains things, although beauty is underwritten by pain and fear.
photography understanding way
The photography is not the aim of the work; the articulation of the work through photography is another way of understanding what's going on and what's happening outside.
sculpture income source
The main source of my income is through the commissions of the large-scale works and big sculptures, the projects.
rain reality ice
If I'm going to understand the land, I have to understand the wind, the snow, the rain, the leaves, the ice, and changes in temperature. It just reflects a reality for me.
giving understanding grows
Understanding the materials I work with... gives me a deeper understanding of my place. And it's helped me make sense of the changes that are happening to me as I grow older.
heart successful unbroken
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.