Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy is a British artist born on 26 July 1956 in Cheshire. He grew up in Leeds in Yorkshire. From the age of 13 he worked in farms, where he discovered the beauty of natural materials and the visual brutality of the countryside. This experience had a deep impact on him and he later compared the repetitive nature of farm tasks to the routine of making a sculpture. In Leeds, he studied at the Bradford School of Art in 1974, then enrolled at the Preston Polytechnic in Lancaster to study fine arts between 1975 and 1978; he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from this university.

Andy Goldsworthy is one of the main artists of the Land art movement and uses natural or reclaimed materials to create temporary or permanent sculptures. Most of the time, the artist works outside with natural materials found on site. For his ephemeral works, Goldsworthy doesn't use any tools apart from his own hands and teeth, improvised tools, or sometimes an Opinel knife. Goldsworthy considers all his artworks to be “ephemeral art", which degrades over time.

Photography also plays a crucial role in his art. Goldsworthy keeps traces of each of his works using colour photographs, to which he gives a title in the form of a legend that explains the work's origins.

He does solo exhibitions in England, France, the Netherlands, and Japan. He takes part in the Venice Biennale and produces several significant works, such as the “Garden of Stones" commissioned by the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York or the “Drawn Stone" commissioned for the courtyard of the De Young Museum in San Francisco. In 1993, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bradford. Goldsworthy is currently a Professor-At-Large at Cornell University.