Richard Long

Whilst researching artist references, I stumbled upon Richard Long, who is an English sculptor and one of the best known British land artists. I have recently been thinking about contexts for my art work and I have currently been displaying my artwork in different locations within the Priestman building and have been contemplating taking my white plaster blocks outside into the 'real' world, building my structures on pavement, on trying it on the grass but due to the poor weather I haven't got around to it just yet.

With contexts of placing my sculptures into the natural environment, it only felt right to actually research some land artists, Richard Long particularly stood out to me. There are several of his works that are based around walks that he has made, and as well as land based natural sculptures, he uses the mediums of photography, text and maps of the landscape he has walked over. In his work, often cited as a response to the environments he walked in, the landscape would be deliberately changed in some way, sometimes sculptures were made in the landscape from rocks or similar found materials and then photographed to record them. I found this interesting, my sculptures could be permanently in the environment, or I could just simply document them and then remove and relocate them.

There are several pieces of artwork by Long that I like, "South Bank Circle" 1991, was created specifically for Long’s 1991 retrospective at the Hayward Gallery at the South Bank Centre in London. It is a circle, nearly two metres in diameter, composed of 168 pieces of slate lying close together on the floor. The slate comes from a quarry in Cornwall. The pieces are assembled in a variety of different configurations within the defining form of the circle. This organisation and geometric pattern, really stood out to me, there is order and precision which is incredibly relatable to my current body of work. I also like how he has used a natural material in slate, the slate grey is really attractive and gives it a rustic, industrial quality.

There is another piece by Long that I find interesting and would like to imitate and replicate is, "Cornish Slate Line" 1990 which featured at Tate London, the organised and precise geometric shape, really is satisfying to look at and kind of reminds me of Carl Andre's 'Equivalent'