BIOGRAPHY
Andy Goldsworthy is a sculpture, land artist and photographer and is known for his artworks created in the outdoors, made only by natural material found on site.
Andy Goldsworthy was born on July 26th, 1956 in Cheshire, England. Growing up Goldsworthy as a farm labourer in his spare time when he was not at school. This work gave him an interest in nature and the outdoors. He studied art at the Bradford School of Art (from 1974-75) as well as at Preston Polytechnic in Lancashire (B.A., 1978). When Goldsworthy was in school he found his interest and preference in creating art outdoors rather than in an art studio, then he began to make temporary works using stones, leaves, sticks, ice, snow and any other natural materials he could find. Some of his earliest works included rock sculptures at a beach near his art school. As he began doing more works he also established the practice of photographing his works once he had completed them and before he had started them. |
Goldsworthy viewed his artworks as a “collaboration with nature” with uncovering the true essence of the materials and seeing what they were capable of. Goldsworthy’s artworks took a lot of patience and time. For example in his artwork “rain shadows” (1984), he had to lie on the ground just before the rain started and stay there until the rain stopped to create the shadow effect.
His Artworks and Exhibitions
Andy Goldsworthy creates his artworks by finding materials to make his art. Goldsworthy tries to use natural materials and he has been known to make sculptures out of ice, using his own saliva to hold it together. After he completes a sculpture, he always takes a photograph because his artworks are very unique.
Some of Goldsworthy’s artworks include: sheep paintings (late 1990’s) which consisted of sheep lick put in a bucket in the centre of a large canvas placed in a sheep pasture. By the end there was a white circle surrounded by smeared and splattered mud, sheep dung and urine; Sheepfolds (1996) which was the restoring of sheepfold structures (a four walled sheep enclosure made from stone) and adding a sculpture to many of the sites; Midsummer snowballs (2000) which was composed of the relocation of 13 enormous snowballs from Scotland to the streets of London in the middle of June. Each of the snowballs had what Goldsworthy called “hidden treasures” which were things that could remind people of the country life such as twigs, chalk, stones and animal hairs.
In addition to those artworks he also constructed permanent indoor and outdoor works, including: the Holocaust memorial called Garden of Stones (2003) that was made out of dwarf oak tree saplings growing on top of 18 boulders; he also made an installation called Roof (2004-05) which was made of nine hollow domes, each with a hole at te top of stacked slabs of slate rock
His works are celebrated in multiple solo exhibitions such as an early traveling retrospective named “Hand to Earth: Andy Goldsworthy: Sculpture:1976-1990” that was at the Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds, England; another major retrospective at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2007-08) in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. He was also the subject of 2 documentaries filmed by Thomas Riedelsheimer - “Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time” (2001) and “Leaning Into the Winds: Andy Goldsworthy” (2017). During the period from 2000-08 Goldworthy was the A.D. White Professor-at-large at Cornell University, in New York. AS well as being made an officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Andy Goldsworthy has had many opportunities in his career and made many amazing works throughout his career.