Quote

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.

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
Trying
Behind
Processes
Single
Isolated
Working
Stone
Understand
Object
Process
Stones
Nature
Materials
Whole
Objects
Leafs
Important
Behinds
Leaf

More quotes by Andy Goldsworthy

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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.
Andy Goldsworthy
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In contact with materials, I can see so much more with my hands than I can just with my eyes. I'm a participant, not a spectator. I see myself both as an object and a material, and the human presence is really important to the landscapes in which I work.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Not being able to touch is sometimes as interesting as being able to touch.
Andy Goldsworthy
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If you lay in the rain, every rain shower, storm, whatever, is different. Every surface is different.
Andy Goldsworthy
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If you repeat something, it can become pointless. Some things can repeat and be endlessly fascinating.
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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Time gives growth, it gives continuity and it gives change. And in the case of some sculptures, time gives a patina to them.
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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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.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Ephemeral work made outside, for and about a day, lies at the core of my art and its making must be kept private.
Andy Goldsworthy
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Some of the snowballs have a kind of animal energy. Not just because of the materials inside them, but in the way that they appear caged, captured.
Andy Goldsworthy
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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.
Andy Goldsworthy
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People are the nature of the city, and you can feel it in the pavement.
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
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Everything has the energy of its making inside it.
Andy Goldsworthy
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I think that I'm always trying to get beyond the surface appearance of things, to go beyond what I can just see.
Andy Goldsworthy
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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.
Andy Goldsworthy
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The stones tear like flesh, rather than breaking. Although what happens is violent, it is a violence that is in stone. A tear is more unnerving than a break.
Andy Goldsworthy
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You must have something new in a landscape as well as something old, something that's dying and something that's being born.
Andy Goldsworthy
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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.
Andy Goldsworthy