At Home: Natural leader

Work by British scupltor Andy Goldworthy. Photo / Supplied

British scupltor Andy Goldsworthy is considered one of the world's foremost environmental artists. Indeed, over the past three decades he has turned drystone walling into high art as he's created sculptures of stone and clay in parks, galleries and remote countryside throughout Europe and America.

In a recent interview with Goldworthy, The Times wrote how he has been labelled "...the British countryside's most engaging propagandist." Although, it writes, he has never been a campaigner for an unspoilt rural idyll. "It is human intervention in nature that fascinates him," The Times wrote, "the forests we cut down, the land that is grazed, the stone walls and slate bridges that punctuate the view. He despairs of the chocolate-box image of the countryside and worries that his artworks have helped to perpetuate that image."

This new book The Andy Goldsworthy Project (Thames & Hudson, $110) follows his creation for the roof of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Virginia. The final result a work that cleverly bridges the gap between the museum and its natural landscape, and explores the role of shelter.

The book is also the only fully illustrated catalogue of Goldsworthy's other commissioned installations, including Eleven Arches (pictured top). This is a work he created in 2005 on the tidal mudflats of the Kaipara farm, here in NZ, belonging to Alan Gibbs. Goldsworthy first visited the farm, which is the home to Gibb's international renowned collection of outdoor sculpture, in 2001 and returned several times to survey the site. Made of red sandstone, the arches were quarried, cut and built in Scotland before being shipped here. They stand defiantly in the Kaipara mud and when the tide comes in, the line of the form reflects in the water to create a complete circle.