The National Galleries of Scotland is hosting the largest-ever indoor exhibition by artist Andy Goldsworthy. As part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, the extraordinary show, at the RSA building, features over 200 works.
From a sheep wool stair-runner to the iron-rich earth wall, from gravestones to a mass of wind-fallen branches, all Goldsworthy’s works invite us to explore our relationship with nature. Rather than trying to express himself, Andy Goldsworthy desires to understand land through the hand of the nature – the very nature he has grown up learning to live with.
From the entrance of the Royal Scottish Academy building, he has managed to create a ‘beautiful and lyrical’ composition. The Wool Runner, a carpet running the length the RSA’s stairs, is made from discarded sheep wool, with colours used to distinguish the owners. As he observed the exhibition gallery from the entrance, through a rusty barbed wire, Goldsworthy intended to recreate the feeling he experiences when looking at fields from a distance: a pure beauty from afar, but with obstacles and hardships revealed as you come closer.
The obstacles and hardships are familiar to him as the back of his hand. Born in England in 1956, he worked as a teenager on farms near Leeds in Yorkshire, where he grew up. Goldsworthy developed a passion for working with the land, from harrowing fields to bailing hay, picking and piling stones, feeding cows and sheep.
Embracing nature is one of the reasons he wanted to use the building as it is, rather than adding artificial walls or altering the structure. By bringing the outdoors indoors, he aimed to create an environment that reflects nature’s obstacles, using every part of the building, even the staircases. To him, the building itself was a challenge that he already accepted, all he has done was in response to the neoclassical building.
One of the most notable things from the exhibition is how he has used the natural light as a part of his artwork, and treated the rooms as if they were part of the sculpture. It felt like a quiet conquest – for the sake of art, and for us.
Gravestones is where the use of light becomes a character of the artwork. It’s a monumental installation consisting of leftover stones from 108 graveyards. He didn’t even cut or hammer them; he used them as they were, and they fitted the room beautifully. The idea began in 2008, following the death of his ex-wife: he realised that each time a grave is dug, stones are left behind. Again, he thinks of the stones as ‘representatives of the exchange between our bodies and the earth’.
Yet it wasn’t easy to handle the stones. It took him several years to touch or do anything with them, because ‘they felt so charged with meaning’, and anything he did had to be done with the greatest respect. He chose not to use artificial lighting in that room, to avoid giving the impression that the stones were on display. Instead, he relied on natural light, creating a dimmer and cooler atmosphere the moment you step in.
Another artwork beautifully illuminated by the natural light is Skylight, which ‘Felt almost like a chapel’ when going in, standing surrounded by lengths of reed mace gathered from Loch of Kinnordy in Angus and various lochs in Dumfries and Galloway in 2024. Intended as a partner to Gravestones, Skylight was made in the ‘hope that the skylight would be cleaned to let light into the building and illuminate the work.’
The artworks are stunning, with deep, layered stories and meanings. They feel as if Goldsworthy owns the earth, and the earth owns him. Red Wall comprises earth, dug from the Lowther Hills in Dumfriesshire, where farmers have taken earth to colour their sheep to enhance their appearance at market. For this exhibition, clay-rich earth was applied to the wall, cracking as it dried. This adds a deeper meaning and a sense of responsibility to the artwork itself. It feels like an improvisation, where the musician, guided by experience and expertise, instinctively know which note to play next.
With years of knowledge and experience living with nature, cutting, digging, gathering, stacking, and building, he knows the earth just as if he knows himself. It’s not difficult to see his care and passion for what he does. His excitement, respect, and love for the material can be seen in his artwork, and his artwork blurs the boundaries between the Earth and our bodies. ‘This earth is a vivid red because of its high iron content. Our blood is also red because of the iron in it. It’s a reminder that we are bound to the earth.’
Just as he collapses the boundary between nature and our bodies, he connects people through red – the red of our blood and the red the earth gives us through its iron content. In this exhibition, he also uses red to link the artworks, creating a connection throughout. One of the most striking works in this exhibition is Flags (2020), a piece he was commissioned to create for the Rockefeller Center in New York. The 50 canvases in 50 shades of red represent the 50 states of the USA. Goldsworthy called them ‘anti-flags’: they connect people and serve as a reminder that we are all linked through red.
He believes in the relationship between the viewer and the art piece. One could sense this throughout the entire building: he wants us to be participants in his work, not just viewers. His art is not about explaining things to us; he has kept the explanations very minimal throughout the galleries, wanting us to have our own experiences, carrying our own backgrounds with us.
Oak Passage is a great example of this. It’s about how we feel when we encounter the piece. It is both provoking and comforting, making you lose your way, then allowing you to find it again.
In Oak Passage, he asks us to approach with our prejudices. Using oak branches deliberately, Goldsworthy wanted the oak floor of the gallery to become part of the artwork, reminding us that the floor was once a tree. He invites us to consider whether he cut all those branches for the sculpture, yet in fact he used only windfall branches. He encourages us to think about ‘the forest in a house and the house in a forest.’
Just as he invites us to participate in his artworks, Goldsworthy uses nature itself as a collaborator. A notable example is Sheep Painting. Canvases were positioned on the land, with a circular mineral block placed on their surface. Sheep approached the blocks to graze, leaving behind footprints, droppings, and other markings. After several days, Goldsworthy removed the mineral blocks, revealing the shapes formed through the animals’ interactions. He has positioned two of them at either end of the entrance gallery.
The exhibition also features numerous videos and photographs in the lower galleries, allowing us to trace his creations from the 1970s to the present day. For Goldsworthy, photography is a way of understanding his artistic process and examining the outcomes of his work. This provides a unique opportunity to witness his practice across five decades.
Thank you to Omur Sahin Keyif (Insta: @theartsreporter) for this review.
