Andy Goldsworthy
Born on 26 July 1956 in Sale and in Cheshire, Andy Goldsworthy holds British citizenship and studied at Bradford College, the University of Bradford, and the University of Lancashire. His practice spans several disciplines: he works as a sculptor, photographer, installation artist, land artist, and environmentalist, with his output falling within the broad category of environmental art.
Among his notable projects is Refuges d'art, a land art work that reflects his sustained engagement with landscape and place. His practice as an environmental and land artist draws on the natural world as both subject and material, and his work as a photographer runs alongside his sculptural and installation-based output. Environmental art, as a genre and a sensibility, shapes the terms in which his work operates.
Goldsworthy has received the Officer of the Order of the British Empire and the Cherry Kearton Medal and Award, two honors that mark distinct aspects of his career. His work continues, grounded in the intersection of land art, environmental art, and photography that has defined his practice across the disciplines recorded here.
Quotes by Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy's insights on:
Ideas must be put to the test. That's why we make things, otherwise they would be no more than ideas. There is often a huge difference between an idea and its realisation. I've had what I thought were great ideas that just didn't work.
When I do the permanent projects or the big projects, when a work is finished, that’s the beginning of its life.
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.
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.
My sculpture can last for days or a few seconds – what is important to me is the experience of making. I leave all my work outside and often return to watch it decay.
My art recognizes the human place, the human context – especially in Britain, which is a landscape so worked by people for thousands of years, written, deeply ingrained with the presence of people.
As with all my work, whether it’s a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, I’m trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. Working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal energy of the stone.
If you’ve ever come across a tree that you’ve lived with for many years and then one day it’s blown over, there’s incredible shock and violence about that.
It’s just that when I work on someone else’s land, it makes me aware of the social nature of that landscape.
I can’t edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole. I find nature as a whole disturbing. Nature can be harsh – difficult and brutal, as well as beautiful. You couldn’t walk five minutes from here without coming across something that is dead or decaying.