Art Portfolio Two - Antony Gormley

Artist Research - contextual studies

Antony Mark David Gormley is a 69-year-old accomplished British sculptor. He was born in London August 30^th 1950. He was interested in art from a young age and pursued the life of artists. From year 1968 to 1971 Gormley was highly educated and received a degree in several subjects at Trinity College in Cambridge, namely art history, archaeology and anthropology. After that and for the next three years of his life, he travelled around in India and Sri Lanka. His travels to the other side of the world left a big impression on him and his artwork later with his career. From meeting different cultures and observing their fashion, he became very fascinated with the human body and its relationship to the environment. After coming back from the East, Gormley underwent further education in fine art at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. Gormley continued his art life afterwards and became one of the most recognized figures in the interactive arts. He created many public installations along the years and won a large number of prizes, beginning with year 1994 when he won the Turner Prize for contemporary art for one of his galleries. His work is mostly installations depicting his own body or the human body in general and its place in, and relationship with the universe. His installations are very thought provoking and can be very unsettling due to their interactive nature. When people stop to admire his human bodies, they become part of his work and thus the observer become the observed.

Gormley’s Standing Matter XVII, 2008

My aim for the Art Portfolio Two project is to create a model of a public sculpture that raise public awareness around the subject of plastic pollution. I was going to create a sculpture of a sea turtle that is stuck in a pile of plastic waste on the beach, struggling to move and see ahead. But this artwork changed the direction to where I am taking my project. This work is depicting a human being stuck in a transparent room gave me the idea to put the turtle in its environment. I am going to place the turtle in an aquarium that is full of plastic waste and polluted seawater.

References:

Kuiper, K. (2018). Antony Gormley | British sculptor and draftsman. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antony-Gormley [Accessed 21 Jul. 2020].

‌www.skny.com. (n.d.). Antony Gormley - Artists - Sean Kelly Gallery. [online] Available at: https://www.skny.com/artists/antony-gormley?view=slider#13 [Accessed 21 Jul. 2020].