This week I decided to look at the work of an environmental artist. Not only is Andy Goldsworthy an actual environmentalist but the majority of his artwork is also based on the natural world around us. His home is located in Scotland but Andy will travel all around the world to complete his site-specific land sculptures. He insists upon working at the location where he comes across his raw, natural materials because he claims that this is the only way he can gain a better understanding of how these materials work and what their purpose is in the natural energy cycle of life. Very similar to Julian Beever’s work below, his creations do not last very long in the arms of the Mother Nature but takes photographs of all his final designs to remember that specific moment in the landscape. For Andy it is more about being able to capture the renewed vitality of a piece of land in that particular moment.
His philosophy seems nothing short of those urban society would call “tree-huggers” but Andy Goldsworthy believes in more of an “Eywa” kind of attitude, if you have seen Avatar. Everything is constantly moving around us with naturally occurring energy and is in an unbroken state of change of life and death. In the words of Jake Sully, “All energy is borrowed, and one day you have to give it back”, but according to Andy Goldsworthy, “"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.” The materials that he is referring to includes flowers, leaves, snow, ice, grass, sand, twigs, and anything else he comes across in wildlife. The natural process of birth, growth, decay and renewal are all central themes in his artwork. His goal is not to destroy the earth around him, rather to use what is given coupled with his bare hands to recreate a perception of life that has not yet been seen.
This belief of everything being in a constant state of change is very reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s artistically animated movies A Scanner Darkly, which we just recently watched in class, and his earlier film Waking Life which is centered on the concept of dreaming but also deals with a lot of fundamental ideas regarding the world and how it operates. Andy Goldsworthy once stated that, “At its most successful, my ‘touch’ looks into the heart of nature; most days I don’t even get close.” His artwork is part of a transient process and in the end his works that are no longer visible in their original form but are still alive, they have simply taken a different shape; the artwork he creates is the moment where nature reaches its maximum potential and when it becomes “most alive”.
Getting beyond the surface of the scenery is very important to Andy; he wants to invoke a part of life that has not been noticed and often recreates this interpretation with a “black hole” in his artwork: a window to what lies below. It is clear-cut from the photographs of his artwork that Andy Goldsworthy has a very personal relationship with Mother Nature and even greater understanding of how she functions. His artwork is very representative of the natural beauty that occurs every day in our lives and puts a unique twist on the conceptual idea of nature. His efforts as an artist also peak creatively as he rarely ever uses traditional artist tools like brushes, paints, molds, or pencils. The earth gives him his materials, and he gives back by adding a little bit of beauty to what was most likely an ordinarily dull scene. Here are some of my favorite works of his...
Large fallen oak tree used leaves with branches still attached for supporting structure inside ball
Jenny Nobles-Gill Dumriesshire
15 September 1985
Leaves polished, greased made in the shadow of the tree from which they fell, pinned to the ground with thorns.
Le jardin Massey, Tarbes, France,
22 August 1989
Rowan Leaves & Hole
Icicle Star, joined with saliva
All Photos credited to
http://www.rwc.uc.edu/artcomm/web/w2005_2006/maria_Goldsworthy/TEST/index.html and http://www.morning-earth.org/artistnaturalists/an_goldsworthy.html
Other credited sites include
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Goldsworthy
http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBcdL8uO71E&feature=related
here is a video of Andy Goldsworthy working on one of his projects with some commentary
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