Great nature artist Andy Goldsworthy

The similarities all the most wonderful people on earth? All of them had a unique ability - to see the extraordinary in the most ordinary and absolutely elementary things ...

The name of Andy Goldsworthy's lips not only in England and Scotland, this man knows no exaggeration worldwide. His works live in Japan and the US, the sparsely populated areas of Australia, and even in the North Pole.

In the work of this master there is something primitive. His canvases - cornflower field, dried valleys and picturesque highlands. Instead of paint - wood, stone, coal, all water conditions, even grass, flowers and very small "part" of nature. Ephemeral sculptures from ice cubes or mysterious cones free rocks - all this is the work of Andy Goldsworthy.

In the late 60's a few American artists in search of an alternative to commercial art, we went out into the wild deserts of the American West. So, a new direction, later called land-art.

The British land-art painter born in 1956 in Cheshire. As a teenager, laboring on a farm near Leeds, Andy Goldsworthy began to explore the environment, building its familiar ingredients in unexpected ways. A few years later he joined the Bradford School of Art and then studied at the local Polytechnic.

Art Gallery Cumbria in England, the artist presented the first exhibition when he was only 24 years old. And to this day, sculpting "strange" masterpieces, the author uses only natural materials. All his works are exclusive. Each piece is calculated the number - one piece and, at times, has devastating for property master: to melt, evaporate, dry, fester ... And since the natural materials in the "field" conditions rarely persist, assess work of the master can only be looking at the photos in the author's books. .

"I enjoy the freedom that allows the use of only my own hands and" found "instruments, - says the author - a sharp stone, bird feather, thorns thorns. I just use the opportunities offered to me every day: if it's snowing, I work with the snow, leaf gives me leaves. I stop and pick up stuff, because I feel there is something that wants to be found. My work - namely the island, where I can learn and always learn something new ... ".

A few years ago, director Thomas Reidelsheimer took a full-length documentary film about the work of Andy Goldsworthy, where he told a lot of interesting moments in the life of this truly extraordinary man. Goldsworthy now lives and works in Scotland. He is not engaged in self-PR and does not like publicity. He just does what gives him pleasure.

In contrast to artists such as Christo and Heather Michael, an ambitious work that spectacular and resemble large-scale installations, rather than work in the usual sense, the work of Goldsworthy's "invisible". He tries to only temporarily change the external state of nature, to feel part of it. Goldsworthy works in both large and small ways, every day opening up more and more new materials for themselves. For example, the foliage. The leaves of the chestnut, maple, sycamore mixed, wrinkle, twist, spiked or fastened with glue. They are dried in the sun, put overlap, making patterns on the plane. In order to create, for example, "a broken icicle" Goldsworthy worked early in the morning, when the air temperature is low enough. Master did not work one day to create a one minute element of the sculpture, and the next morning the ice creature safely turned into a puddle next to the porch ...

The unanimous desire of artists and curators to declare art free, existing outside the walls of galleries and museums, is embodied in the most unexpected action, sometimes referred to as land art, public art sometimes, if not "landscape invayronment". However, there are precise definitions for all "natural" phenomena.

"Site-specific art" - is the transformation of the existing elements of the environment into works of art with the help of additional funds: the most striking example - for a few hundred meters of the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped monochromatic fabric all park trees. Thus, the installation of separate, unrelated to the environment of objects called "installation art" - it is considered to be the ancestor of the famous landscape designer Robert Irwin. Artifacts such artists as Goldsworthy, and Lutz Long, with his compositions of ice, clay, stones and flowers, branches and grass is really amazing. Virtuosos of the nature of use in their work and receive "srop art" - art "recycling" Harvest, play with changing the face of the flora.

In August 2001, he graduated from concern over the project, "Stone River" (Stone River). 320-foot statue on the campus of Stanford University was built of sandstone from the university buildings were destroyed by earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. For three and a half weeks to 11 hours a day Goldsworthy and his team are "filled" new river stone - serpentine sculpture University Park.

One of the most voluminous of his works - "Lembtonsky landscape" project in 1988. In his conception of the author managed to bring incredible. Length of 495 meters on the site of an abandoned railroad track real park for cycling was built. The construction impresses with its forms and is under the protection of society "Nordic Art". If ever the power will find this site a better use, the work of the artist will be destroyed. Such vneglasny contract.

Another project - "The Sheepfold" (sheepfolds) in Cumbria. With the help of the local mason Andy restored about a hundred traditional stone pens for sheep - with subtle variations. The final stage of this project took place in 2000 and became one of the most ambitious public art projects in the world.