3D experimentation & Andy Goldsworthy

 Using sticks, leaves, horse hair and part of a branch I experimented making a semi abstract sculpture of a horse. I wanted to leave parts of the form out, such as detail to the front the legs, the back, bum and back legs entirely and leave parts airy. This was to not focus too much on the form itself but more what was the jist of what it looked like and more focusing on the natural substances that make it up. I particularly like working with horse hair as it's wirey and rough which worked great on a 2D/3D sculpture and is part of the horse. The horse hair is like the heart of the horse and the twigs and leaves make up its surrounding and sources of life.

I've been looking into how Indians used the Buffalo fully and the art they made from the skins and bones. I found some tribal painted bones and skulls and decided to recreate my own using ash, charcoal, clay, chalk and Indian ink. [This is a muntjac skull, the closest horned skull to a buffalo I could find in the woods!]

Because of my fascination with natural materials I've been looking at the work of Andy Goldsworthy. I particularly like his non permanent sculptures, I love the idea of the work being around for a short time, I just like the idea that it has its day and then passes on like with all natural sources and life in general. It fades away like the environment around it, constantly changing.

I found this quote by him; "My art is an attempt to reach beyond the surface appearance. I want to see growth in wood, time in stone, nature in a city, and I do not mean its parks but a deeper understanding that a city is nature too-the ground upon which it is built, the stone with which it is made."
Andy Goldsworthy 

This is very much like what I want to achieve with my work, I want to go beyond the surface appearance of the horse and represent its deeper spiritual side that I feel and see around horses.

I also really love this quote about his work 'midsummer snowballs';

Some of the snowballs have a kind of animal energy. Not just because of the materials inside them, but in the way that they appear caged, captured.
Andy Goldsworthy 

I feel like this is so true about his work and both how animals appear, another reason why I want to go beyond what we as humans have done to horses but to what they hold. This was another of his pieces I really liked because they constantly changed and eventually melted away, there's something about the idea that the materials return to the earth like the circle of life that I like so much. It reminds me of my research into Indian spiritualism that we all are connected as creations from mother earth and will return to earth after we have lived and another creation will be made of us.