50 years of Andy Goldsworthy

When the National Galleries of Scotland first approached Andy Goldsworthy about a show to mark his 50th year as an artist, they expected him to focus on one of their outdoor spaces.

Perhaps mingling inside and out, as he did in a show at the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh in 1990.

Instead, he asked to have the run of one of their largest spaces – the Royal Scottish Academy in the heart of Edinburgh.

It features over 200 works, from photographs, films and sketchbooks dating back to the 1970s to major installations made in response to the neoclassical building.

For the past few weeks, he’s been transporting pieces of art from the area in Dumfries and Galloway where he lives.

“To have this building to work with is a major moment for me as an artist,” he explains.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had an exhibition that has paralleled the work that I’m making in the landscape but because the RSA is less than two hours from where I live, it has become a dialogue, with everything intertwined.”

Born in Cheshire in 1956, Andy Goldsworthy worked on farms in Yorkshire as a teenager, where he learned the skills which have become part of his process. Harrowing the fields, picking out and piling stones, cutting, digging and stacking. After studying art, he began photographing and filming these ephemeral creations.

He has always risen to the challenge of working outdoors, adapting to the elements and adjusting to the material he finds. Staging such a major show inside has brought new challenges.

Bureaucratic issues to overcome and a large-scale building which he’s determined to work with, not against.

A runner made from sheep fleeces, daubed with colours marking different farms, carpets the stairs leading up to the galleries. A sculpture made of discarded work gloves, worn and dusty, is glimpsed in a corner, leading to a slowly cracking clay wall, and a 20-metre-long Oak Passage made from discarded trees.

“The oak branches stand on an oak floor and that’s not by chance,” he says.

“It reveals that this was once a tree, I hope, in the minds of people who walk it.”

The relationship between humans and land is a constant theme in his work. Fences and barriers feature prominently, including a rusted barbed wire piece which extends across an entire room.

“That wire fence is about the difficulties and obstructions which every artist has to face, especially one that works in the land.

“But it is also about finding a way through.”

Goldsworthy came to Scotland 40 years ago, and set up home in Dumfries and Galloway.

South west Scotland, he says, was affordable and welcoming.

“I liked the right to roam, the openness of the farmers, and the ability to enjoy the land.”

It was all those factors which made him stay, raising a family here, and creating a large body of work.

He says the show is a tribute to all those who supported him.

“People have shown such openness and tolerance and they’re the reason I’ve stayed. This exhibition is an acknowledgement of just how wonderful it has been, to show my appreciation of Scotland.”

He continues to produce work, locally and globally, and one of the rooms hosts a very personal work in progress.

“My former wife Judith died in 2008 and when I was visiting her grave, I noticed there was a pile of stones by the cemetery wall. And I discovered they’re found in every cemetery, displaced from digging graves,” he says

“So when a body goes into the earth, there are always some stones left over. There’s an exchange between the body and the land and I thought that was very powerful.”

He began to gather stones from hundreds of graveyards across the region.

“It took me two or three years to even touch them, they felt so special.”

The stones on display in the RSA will form part of a huge project he plans for the Lowther Hills.

“It’ll be in a walled enclosure on top of a small hill, with beautiful views.

“It’ll be a sea of humanity; a sea of stones and I hope it’ll be spiritually uplifting.”

Andy Goldsworthy: 50 Years is a National Galleries Scotland exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy building from 26 July to 2 November.