I was first exposed to Gormley in the early nineties when I bought an art book on young British artists including Andy Goldsworthy too and his sculptures captivated me.
I feel Gormley’s sculptures made a return to figurative sculpture in contemporary art.
Then last year I found a community transport driver who also had an interest in sculpture like me and I gave him me a few drawings and in return he gave me a contemporary art DVD documentary with interviews with four different contemporary artists and Gormley was one of them. It was his outdoor sculptures that I found most compelling.
“Making beautiful things for everyday use is a wonderful thing to do – making life flow more easily – but art confronts life, allowing it to stop and perhaps change direction – they are completely different.”
Antony Gormley
I like this quote by Gormley and I also think art can confront life and perhaps change our direction.
“The making of a whole person and the creation of true individuals can only happen by singing and dancing and making art.”
Antony Gormley
I like this quote by Gormley and I agree particularly making art can make a whole person. Since starting my ten drawings a day project about four years ago my life has become more whole and my mind mostly more balanced. However, at times I overdid night long drawing sessions and that wasn’t balanced. Now I try to mainly have the afternoons off watching movies and if I am busy hardly ever past 5pm.
“How do you make the timelessness of inert, silent objects count for something? How to use the, in a way, dumbness of sculpture in a way that acts on us as living things?”
Antony Gormley
This quote by Gormley also speaks to me and art that is looked after can survive for generations such as Michelangelo’s David. It was made in 1501-1504 and he was 26 years old when he made it. It is a powerful, figurative sculpture made of marble and is very realistic in nature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUDGWzlT0IM
In conclusion Gormley’s sculpture doesn’t just fit into contemporary sculpture and installation trends but also with figurative sculpture right through humans developed history.
The following documentary is about Gormley and has a good insight into his art practice. After watching the documentary, I realised there were several aspects in his art practise that I had left out in the original draft of this essay. They are his interest in Buddhism, casting directly from his own body and others bodies, and paper figurative works and performance art with live bodies.
antony gormley documentaries – Google Search
