Great Britain
* August 30, 1950 London
Sir Antony Gormley’s works mostly focus on the human body, in recent years often in abstract, stylized or geometric form. In many cases, his own body serves as the starting point for his sculptures. He primarily works with iron, steel or lead, but also with clay, concrete and glass.
The artist plays with scale – from life-size figures to huge installations – and with the repetition of body shapes in different variations. Many of his works interact with the environment in which they are placed. Whether in galleries or outdoors, his sculptures create a new relationship between figure, space and viewer.
Gormley’s most famous work is the enormous steel sculpture “Angel of the North” on the M1 in northeast England. The 20-meter-high figure, shaped like an angel, has a wingspan of 54 meters; a significantly smaller version is on display at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. “Another Place”, erected for a few weeks in 1997 in the Wadden Sea off Cuxhaven, consists of 190 life-size iron figures; today the installation can be found permanently north of Liverpool on Crosby Beach.
