Andy Goldsworthy, born on 26 July 1956, is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist producing site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. I personally like the way he puts things in nature (like snow, ice, leafs, branches, water) together and explores the fascinations nature can bring to us.

“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”.Andy Goldsworthy.

Q1. Use the quote given above to find, describe and analyse a piece of Andy Goldsworthy’s work, that would ‘fit’ in Singapore.

This is “Sticks Framing a Lake” by Andy Goldsworthy, an artist who uses materials from nature to create unconventional and creative artworks. I chose this piece of artwork because I think it relates well to Singapore since it is an artwork based on water. It has a link to Singapore as although Singapore does not have many very large lakes, it is a water-based city; it is an island, so this water-based artwork should be able to link to SIngapore.

This work depicts twigs and branches arranged in an order such that as a whole it forms a semi circle above the water surface. These sticks are appears to be arranged in random order to form the overall picture of a flat semi circle. However, when looked closely, it can be seen that there are more sticks used towards the centre of the circle; there are more sticks used when it comes towards the hole as these sticks are put side by and side seem to be put in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction in order to secure the hole that is intended to make. The water reflects the image of the semicircle formed by these sticks completely. The water is so clear and reflective that the image is reflected without any blurring, and the water surface line to separate the real sticks from the reflected image can no longer be seen. Overall, as this artwork is made from natural materials, its colours are very earthly. The artwork also has a relatively balanced composition as the circular sculpture fills up almost the whole picture, except that it is a bit heavier at the centre due to the large number of sticks surrounding the hole in the middle.

Each of the sticks intersects with at least one other stick to secure its own position in the circular formation. Hence, the sticks had to be arranged carefully to ensure that the sticks complement each other well. This artwork is also a juxtaposition of sticks with water. The artist used water as a reflective platform to put the semicircle of sticks on, such that the water reflects out the other half of the semicircle to form a complete circle. The line of water surface that separates the real from the reflected image disappears too. This causes the artwork to appear surreal due to the reflected image that seems linked to the real sticks, resulting in an illusion of a circular sculpture of sticks (like a bird nest) floating in air. As more sticks are used to form the hole at the centre, the intensity of the colour surrounding the hole is much higher than the sticks sticking out towards the outer of the circle. This results in a focal point at the centre area, yet not the precise middle spot as that spot is actually empty. This seems to imply that sometimes what we see are just illusions and things may not turn out to be what we think it will be. And when we think we have found the main purpose of doing something or the more important thing, when we look closely it may turn out to be nothing, like the hole in the artwork that had once caught the attention of viewers.

I personally like the way Andy Goldsworthy only used materials from nature to put together into an artwork. The twigs and branches, the water from the lake, these are all very common things we see in nature. However, we would never have imagined a floating “bird nest” that is actually just an illusion. It is also good that this artwork is from nature, so it is site-specific and it also shows that no one can take anything from nature, but we can put things of nature together to form new things.

Discuss this work in relation to another named work by another artist that operates in a similar way.

Patrick Dougherty is also an artist that uses materials from nature to create artworks. His artworks are also big scaled and site-specific, as he usually builds sculptures using living or dead wooden sticks. His artworks are also monumental site-specific installations that require sticks by the truckload. Using the artwork “Hold Rope” as an example, it can be seen a similarity between that and the “Sticks Framing a Lake” by Andy, as both uses sticks to form a hole and its stucture. Although they are different in the sense that Andy does not make sculptures that resmeble treehouses, while Patrick did that many times, building sculptures that look like houses. However, both artists use the same medium as their artworks, they use materials from the nature to create many intereesting artworks, letting viewers see the fantasies of nature.

Own Work: (Little Grave)

This artwork is a collaboration with many other AEP-ers as stated in the caption (: Our “grave” idea came from a little snail shell while we were walking along the pavement. The empty snail shell gave us the idea that the snail might have already been dead, so we decided to buid a grave for it.

We surrounded the stem of a yellow flower with stones to form a big circle (inspired by Andy’s works that have abig holes and circles) as I think the circle represents eternity and we hope that the snail will have a better life in its next life. Then we put a big whitish stone in the middle, behind the snail shell that lies on the leaves of the yellow flower. we also scattered pink small flowers over the grave as tribute to the snail. This grave is cute in its way and very meaningful. Rest in peace little snail (: may you live a good life next time you appear in this world again (:

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