Land Art…

What is Land Art?Land Art is an art movement which is used in the form of sculpture, started in the late 1960s.Artists used natural and organic materials such as rocks, wood and synthetic materials to create these sculptures which would then be left to erode under natural causes, this meant that a lot of the time these kind of works could only be viewed in photographs.These sculptures would often be created in open spaces in sight of the public eye.

Richard Shilling…Richard Shilling is a British artist who creates sculptures using only natural materials gathered from where the sculpture is actually going to be made.He doesn’t use anything like glue or string to create his pieces and a lot of the time, most of his sculptures will only last for a few minutes before the weather destroys them.

Autumn butterfly – Dog wood, maple leaves and thorns

Norwegian Maple Autumn Fire Wheel –Woven dogwood, Willow Wheel and Norwegian Maple Leaves

His Artwork started a few years ago when he moved house.He saw a structure of rocks which had no purpose to them.After that he started looking at an artist called Andy Goldsworthy.

By looking into Andy Goldsworthy, he realised what he could discover through nature and started creating his own little sculptures to reflect what he saw.

Spore –Woven hazel stick ball with teasel heads

Andy Goldsworthy…Andy Goldsworthy is a British artist who is very much inspire by natural and organic shapes and materials.In all of his works, he tends to use snow, ice, leaves, rocks etc.When a specific sculpture has been made, Goldsworthy tends to record it as a photograph before it disappears or during the disappearing stage.

This is one of his pieces called the Icicle Star.Goldsworthy used human saliva to join all the spikes together.

Leaves which have been polished with grease and then pinned down with thorns underneath the tree from where the leaves fell.

A slab of frozen snow has been cut and then each level of the circle has been scraped/picked out with a stick to the point where the stick almost goes through the last layer.That way the sun can shine through the gap.

Goldsworthy didn’t intend to make his mark with the sculptures he made because he knew that a lot of the time, the weather would destroy them.Instead he decided to work with the area as it was, so that he could create a sculpture and then capture it in a new perception.

‘’Place is found by walking, direction determined by weather and season. I take the opportunity each day offers: if it is snowing, I work in snow, at leaf-fall it will be leaves; a blown over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches. ‘’

Claes Oldenburg…An American artist who is widely known for his take on the ‘Pop Art Movement’.He uses this movement to create huge Land Art sculptures in the most random public places.The ideas of his sculptures came from his early works when he wasn’t a recognised artist.He used a lot of common objects such as figures, signs, food and cheap clothing.

Before making the giant sculptures, Oldenburg saw his ideas as drawings and paintings, he would call them the imaginary outdoor monuments.These ideas also took the form of collages or poetic drawings, he would draw a common object like a spoon and he would put it into a landscape.The spoon would be huge compared to the buildings.As he became more involved with the drawings, he started to imagine them for real and soon after he created his first sculpture which was ‘Lipstick Ascending, on Caterpillar Tracks.’

Installed in front of the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University in 1969.

Fashion…Satu Maaranen uses the idea of the nature within her garments in an artistic way.

John Rocha used the shape of Andy Goldsworthy’s sculptures to create his own collection.

The End…