Home / Authors / Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy Quotes

Photographer

Andy Goldsworthy, born on July 26, 1956, is a renowned British photographer. His works are inspired by nature and capture the beauty of landscapes through unique perspectives and techniques, earning him the title of 'earth artist'. Goldsworthy's art often involves creating outdoors, using natural materials to produce works that have a strong visual impact and artistic appeal.

Filter quotes by topic

All Artist Stones Art Materials Way Energy Ifs Process Snow Thinking

Famous Andy Goldsworthy Quotes

“1985 saw my first use of the spiral. It took me a long time to come to terms with this form, so evident in nature, and I still avoid the overblown spiral. I prefer that of the unfolding fern, which gives the feeling of endless growth.”

Form Growth Nature Spiral

Book:Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature

Source: Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature

“When travelling I regret the loss of a sense of change. I see differences not changes. Change is best experienced by staying in one place.”

Time Nature Change

Book:Stone

Source: Stone

“Sometimes I feel that the source of a sculpture's energy comes from the effort of trying to regain a sense of balance lost at some point when I lacked control or concentration or perhaps made an error of judgment. Such moments happen all the time in the making of a sculpture. Not to experience uncertainty or to make no mistakes would in a sense render the making of a sculpture pointless. Any new work should challenge my understanding of both how and why a sculpture should be made.”

Art Energy Understanding Errors Mistakes Uncertainty Sculpture

Book:Passage

Source: Passage

“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.”

Trying Enough Three Four Achieve Havens Balance Stones Firing

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Artist Three Hours Quality Journey Cold Six Stores Snow Wet Tense Snowball

Book:Midsummer Snowballs

Source: Midsummer Snowballs

“As you grow older you realize that art has an enormous effect. It's frightening sometimes to think of the effect that we can have.”

Thinking Art Sometimes Grows Realizing Effects Aging Enormous Frightening Time To Think

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“Beauty is what sustains things, although beauty is underwritten by pain and fear.”

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“I'm dealing with the most important things there are: life and nature. If this doesn't work, if this doesn't sustain me, I can't go back to nature. I'm right there. There's nowhere to go, and that frightens me.”

Ifs I Can Important Importance Important Things Nowhere To Go

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Giving Grows Understanding Materials Happenings Give Me Deeper Make Sense Deeper Understanding

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Way Art Culture Accepting Car Gardening Programmes Plagiarism Decorating Adverts

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“Art is not a career - it's a life.”

Art Careers Art Is Profession

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“It's art that's taught me to think and to write.”

Thinking Writing Art Taught

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“My work comes first, reasons for it follow.”

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“Movement, change, light, growth, and decay are the life-blood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work.”

Trying Light Energy Growth Blood Movement Decay

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Important Lasts Watches Return Work Out Seconds Decay Sculpture

Book:Rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm

Source: Rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm

“Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.”

Childhood Response Winter Snow Provoking Winter Snow Snow Falling

Book:Midsummer Snowballs

Source: Midsummer Snowballs

“Even in winter an isolated patch of snow has a special quality.”

Quality Special Winter Snow Isolated Patches

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“A snowball is simple, direct and familiar to most of us. I use this simplicity as a container for feelings and ideas that function on many levels.”

Ideas Use Feelings Artist Simple Levels Direct Function Simplicity Familiar Containers Snowball

Book:Midsummer Snowballs

Source: Midsummer Snowballs

“Fire is the origin of stone.By working the stone with heat, I am returning it to its source.”

Fire Source Stones Heat

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“Winter makes a bridge between one year and another and, in this case, one century and the next.”

Years Artist Next Cases Century Winter Bridges

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“My art is an attempt to reach beyond the surface appearance. I want to see growth in wood, time in stone, nature in a city, and I do not mean its parks but a deeper understanding that a city is nature too-the ground upon which it is built, the stone with which it is made.”

Want Mean Art Made Understanding Growth Cities Art Is Built Stones Appearance Deeper Woods Surface Parks Deeper Understanding

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“The difference between a theatre with and without an audience is enormous. There is a palpable, critical energy created by the presence of the audience.”

Energy Differences Audience Critical Theatre Enormous

Book:Midsummer Snowballs

Source: Midsummer Snowballs

“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.”

Way Kind Energy Animal Materials Captured Caged Snowball Caged Animal

Book:Midsummer Snowballs

Source: Midsummer Snowballs

“Abandoning the project was incredibly stressful after having gone through the process of building the room, installing the kiln, collecting the stones, sitting with the kiln day and night as it came to temperature, experiencing the failures.”

Artist Night Process Rooms Gone Building Projects Sitting Stones Temperature Collecting Day And Night Stressful

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Trying Energy Rocks Stones Appearance Surface Ice Internals Leafs Beneath The Surface

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

World Running Earth Artist Energy Taught Red Flow Rounds France California Britain Japan Australia Veins Energy And Life

Book:Midsummer Snowballs

Source: Midsummer Snowballs

“Occasionally I have come across a last patch of snow on top of a mountain in late May or June. There's something very powerful about finding snow in summer.”

May Lasts Nature Powerful Mountain Findings Late Summer Snow June Patches Very Powerful

Book:Midsummer Snowballs

Source: Midsummer Snowballs

“Stones are checked every so often to see if any have split or at worst exploded. An explosion can leave debris in the elements so the firing has to be abandoned.”

Ifs Artist Worst Elements Stones Abandoned Splits Explosions Firing Debris

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Ifs Reality Land Wind Rain Snow Ice Temperature

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Way Understanding Photography Happenings Aim Another Way Articulation

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“If you repeat something, it can become pointless. Some things can repeat and be endlessly fascinating.”

Ifs Repeats Fascinating Pointless

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“If you lay in the rain, every rain shower, storm, whatever, is different. Every surface is different.”

Ifs Different Rain Lays Storm Surface Showers

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“When I was at art school, a lot of art education is about art being a means of self-expression, and as an 18-year-old I didn't know if I had a huge amount I wanted to express. It was a big moment when I decided I wanted to shift the emphasis or the intention of my art from something I disgorged myself upon and something that actually fed me or made me see the world or understand the world.”

Ifs Knows World Years Mean Art Made Self Moments Bigs Wanted School Expression Huge Amount Art Is Decided Intention Feds Emphasis Self Expression Art School Art Education

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Humans I Can Important Hands Eye Objects Materials Contact Landscape Spectators Participants

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“My art recognizes the human place, the human context - especially in Britain, which is a landscape so worked by people for thousands of years, written, deeply ingrained with the presence of people.”

People Years Humans Art Written Landscape Britain

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“I think that any sculpture is a response to its environment. It can be brought to life or put to sleep by the environment.”

Thinking Sleep Environment Response Sculpture

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“Sometimes you need to stop doing something to really see it afresh.”

Needs Sometimes

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Knows Objects Finals

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“The main reason I went to digital was because I got time-lapse, video, and still images all in one camera. Having a minimal amount of gear is really important for someone who wants to walk around. That allowed me to have this flexibility to document things in different ways.”

Way Want Stills Important Different Reason Walks Amount Cameras Video Different Ways Digital Documents Flexibility Gears Lapses Time Lapse

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Bigs Happened Amount Stones Scales Heat Expensive Realised

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“People do not realise that many of my works are done in urban places. I was brought up on the edge of Leeds, five miles from the city centre-on one side were fields and on the other, the city.”

People Done Sides Cities Five Fields Edges Miles Realising Urban Centre Leeds

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“Complete control can be the death of a work.”

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“If I had to describe my work in one word, that word would be time.”

Ifs Would Be One Word

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“The things that I make are that which a person will make. They're not meant to mimic nature. They are nothing but the result of a hand of a person.”

Persons Hands Results

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“Design implies a sense of mapping something out and then you follow the plan.”

Plans Design Mapping

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Process Understanding Growth Land Materials Critical Weather Compromise Unpredictable

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Gone Cutting Violence Tree Grew Absence Shock Farmers Firewood

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“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.”

Ifs Years Violence Tree One Day Incredibles Shock

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“I go way beyond just the wood and stone but to the process of growth and farming and the tensions between the two.”

Way Two Process Growth Stones Woods Tension Farming

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

“I think that I'm always trying to get beyond the surface appearance of things, to go beyond what I can just see.”

Thinking Trying I Can Appearance Surface Always Trying

Author:Andy Goldsworthy

About the Author

Born: July 26, 1956
Known for: Photographer
Quotes: 111

Related Topics

Artist Stones Art Materials Way Energy Ifs Process Snow Thinking

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Midsummer SnowballsRelated source material

Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with NatureRelated source material

PassageRelated source material

Rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calmRelated source material

StoneRelated source material

Similar Authors

Robert SmithsonBrowse related quotes
Eric MaiselBrowse related quotes
Paul CezanneBrowse related quotes
Yoko OnoBrowse related quotes
Bill SienkiewiczBrowse related quotes
Marcel DuchampBrowse related quotes
Georg BaselitzBrowse related quotes
Jock SturgesBrowse related quotes
Auguste RodinBrowse related quotes
Sol LeWittBrowse related quotes