As hard as it might be to pin down, there is a straightforwardness about the work of Andy Goldsworthy, a quiet clarity which makes meaning out of sheer simplicity.
His work will almost always be found physically in nature, if not certainly close to it. It will be constructed by his hand, not merely directed in its making, each piece meticulously assembled from the most obvious to the least noteworthy of found objects in the locality of its site; and in the manner of its expression, will subtly bring depth to our experience of its context. The beauty found in each work is inevitably bound to the impermanance of its existence.
The only end trace of each work lies in the photographs he takes of its passage.
He makes gifts to the rivers and to the sea, makes arrangements of twigs and leaves as relationships between the earth and its processes, casts colour into dark pools of water set in rock as if it were the most natural thing to be found.
And each piece surprises on first contact, by virtue of our disbelief nature could have produced such arrangement. But a second take then reveals those traces of the creative human touch. Environmental art will be found in fair abundance these days, but few can approach the leaps of possibility, the intuitive and evolved work of this man for one simple reason.
The work of Andy Goldsworthy is singularly contextual.