Imagine stumbling on a meticulously made work of art on a hike out in the middle of nowhere. How thr

Imagine stumbling on a meticulously made work of art on a hike out in the middle of nowhere. How thrilling would it be to suddenly be in the presence of something massive, monumental, almost megalithic. Or perhaps chance upon something on a slightly smaller scale. A hidden gem, that becomes a personal friend and that feels like your very own. A flash of colour surrounded by trees or a shape embedded in an old sheepfold.

Recently, I’ve taken an interest in Land Art, most probably because I  live in a shoe box and have no land of my own to speak of. So for me, there’s just something about the way these artists work with and against nature to create their art. Sometimes creating a living piece like Ash Dome by David Nash. It brings up ideas about how art doesn’t have to be the reshaping of dead or lifeless material, but can be a benefit to the environment, can actually be the environment. Think about the sustainability.

But not only that, at times the art world seems –like a lot of other worlds– driven by, and for, extroverts. I admit we have seen a shift with the internet, but so much of how we talk about and connect with art seems to be about high intensity. Museums and Galleries tend to have work from a lot of different artists, pooling a whole lot of different ideas and evoking many different emotions. And on the other end, so much of the time artists are expected to talk, schmooze and be interesting. There’s a misconception that they’re excitable and high energy (I know I don’t fit that description a fourth, okay maybe sixteenth, of the time, do you?). But Land Art, to me, is less about the artist and more about the landscape, man and nature, our own ancient but ever-present struggle for balance between mastery of and subjugation by nature, think Julie Brook’s Firestacks (https://vimeo.com/209803621). It hearkens back to a past long ago but not entirely forgotten, like the Crawick Multiverse by Charles Jencks. Land Art evokes thoughts and feelings but is less about the cult of personality and more about an individual alone finding inspiration in nothing but the natural world around them. Artists that took their work to nature quite literally. They’ve proven that you don’t need to be in a gallery or a city or a studio even to make important and moving art. That you can be out in nature by yourself. Theirs, to my mind, is the ultimate form of artistic introversion.

And to be honest, seeing all of these in person is now on my bucket list.

Images:

Stone rows at the Crawick Multiverse, Charles Jencks by Rosser1954 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Stone House, Andy Goldsworthy by GailLeenstra (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons