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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Andy Goldsworthy

Image
I'm not a performer, in that I don't like the public, but I work in that respect.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
Three or four stones in one firing will all react differently. I try to achieve a balance between those that haven't progressed enough and those about to go too far.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
I've laid down in dried up streambeds, leaving a shadow. And then, five minutes later, it's flash flooded, and where I once laid is now running water, which would've washed me away, you know? There's that power and danger often in places that look so calm and pastoral to begin with.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
Art is not a career - it's a life.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
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.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
The British climate, although it is very wet, it is quite mild in winter. We don't get these severe - generally don't get severe winters.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
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
Image
Nature, for me is raw and dangerous and difficult and beautiful and unnerving.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
I soon realised that what had happened on a small scale cannot necessarily be repeated on a larger scale. The stones were so big that the amount of heat required was prohibitively expensive and wasteful.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
I did tests on small stones before collecting and committing myself to the larger ones.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
A lot of my work is like picking potatoes you have to get into the rhythm of it. It is different than patience. It is not thinking. It is working with the rhythm.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
The main source of my income is through the commissions of the large-scale works and big sculptures, the projects.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
I enjoy working in a quiet and subversive way.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
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
Image
When I do the permanent projects or the big projects, when a work is finished, that's the beginning of its life.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
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
Image
It's just that when I work on someone else's land, it makes me aware of the social nature of that landscape.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
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
Image
The underlying tension of a lot of my art is to try and look through the surface appearance of things. Inevitably, one way of getting beneath the surface is to introduce a hole, a window into what lies below.
Andy Goldsworthy
Image
When I make a work, I often take it to the very edge of its collapse, and that's a very beautiful balance.
Andy Goldsworthy