Glimpses of Goldsworthy
In 1988 I went to the Fruitmarket Gallery to see The Unpainted Landscape exhibition, I was in first year at Gray’s School of Art and the exhibition left a lasting impression on me and informed a lot of the work I made as an undergraduate, including this large nest like structure which I made from fallen branches and twigs, it was sited just outside the sculpture department, this was in third year I think, one of the most fabulous things about the Gray’s Garthdee Campus is the landscape.
An ephemeral work I installed outdoors at Gray’s circa 1990
Front cover and blurb on the back of The Unpainted Landscape Book
Taught by Doug Cocker at Gray’s, little did I know that I would later share a forest with Chris Drury (Tyrebagger Forest Sculpture Trail 1994) and meet Roger Ackling in 2004 when I ran workshops to compliment his exhibition at the Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews.
Above a couple of Andy Goldsworthy’s works in The Unpainted Landscape book, I recall seeing the image on the right in his recent exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy. As undergraduates we had a memorable trip to Grizedale Forest, at this time (in the late 80s) there were a lot of fabulous works there, below Goldsworthy’s Seven Spires and Sidewinder, Sidewinder was the latter work and came about through Goldsworthy finding many curved tree trunks that were discarded as they were of no commercial value when he was looking for very straight windblown trees for Seven Spires.
Image by John Goldsworthy from Andy Goldsworthy at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
In 2003 I came across Andy Goldsworthy’s work again when I was on my English Speaking Union Thyne Scholarship – below excerpts from my journal.
Below some of my favourite works from Goldsworthy’s recent show in Edinburgh.
