Quote

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.

Andy Goldsworthy

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Andy Goldsworthy
Age: 68
Born: 1956
Born: July 25
Artist
Environmental Artist
Environmentalist
Land Artist
Photographer
Sculptor
County Palatine of Chester
Andi Gōruzuwājī
Andrew Goldsworthy
Understand
Attempt
Energy
Appearance
Leafs
Trying
Surface
Leaf
Work
Stones
Internals
Things
Rock
Internal
Rocks
Ice
Working
Beneath
Whether
Stone

More quotes by Andy Goldsworthy

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I enjoy working in a quiet and subversive way.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I think that any sculpture is a response to its environment. It can be brought to life or put to sleep by the environment.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I have worked with this red all over the world - in Japan, California, France, Britain, Australia - a vein running round the earth. It has taught me about the flow, energy and life that connects one place with another.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I love the winter. Well, I love all the seasons, but the winter is possibly one of the most intense.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I see my work plagiarized in gardening programmes and decorating programmes and car adverts, and I suppose I have to accept that's just the way art gets assimilated into culture.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Winter makes a bridge between one year and another and, in this case, one century and the next.
Andy Goldsworthy
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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 realization. I've had what I thought were great ideas that just didn't work.
Andy Goldsworthy
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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.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I'm cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames.
Andy Goldsworthy
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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.
Andy Goldsworthy
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We often forget that we are nature.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The hardened mass of liquid stones had much stronger qualities than those which had simply torn. The skin remained a recognisable part of the molten stone.
Andy Goldsworthy
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It takes between three and six hours to make each snowball, depending on snow quality. Wet snow is quick to work with but also quick to thaw, which can lead to a tense journey to the cold store.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The process of growth is obviously critical to my understanding of the land and myself. So the process is far more unpredictable with far more compromises with the day, the weather, the material.
Andy Goldsworthy
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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.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The reason why the stone is red is its iron content, which is also why our blood is red.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The relationship between the public and the artist is complex and difficult to explain. There is a fine line between using this critical energy creatively and pandering to it.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Even in winter an isolated patch of snow has a special quality.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I just see myself as an object in the final image. I know I'm experiencing it when I'm there working on it. I'm there to be worked with, as anything else that I work with.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I knew the tree when it grew, and the tree is now gone. The farmers cut it up, and it's become firewood. And there's this tremendous sense of absence and shock and violence attendant to that collapsing tree.
Andy Goldsworthy