Anthony Gormley Studio Visit

I want to mention the wonderful visit we had to Antony Gormley's studio in the region north of King's Cross. I was privileged to be invited with a group of people from Trinity College to an open evening at the studio.

First impressions were awe-inspiring. The size of the forecourt itself was very impressive. It immediately made me think of trucks pulling in pickup the huge pieces creates, or parts of those pieces.

The e-mail invitation suggested that the event would be crowded and so I didn't go on my collapsible bicycle, imagining that would not be room for it in the studio. Ridiculous. The studio was huge. Huge.At least three stories high it seemed, and there was a large selection of works and sketches hanging from the ceiling as well as massive incomplete works scattered about the floor. This was all wonderful.

Even more wonderful of course was hearing Mr Gormley speak intelligently and inspirationally and kindly for an hour about life and art and philosophy. I came away inspired and feeling indebted to be in the presence of such intelligent creativity.

As a creator of large three-dimensional pieces he was extremely interested in the technical details of mass and dimension. And, of course, he's very focused on the body. His body. He spoke clearly about how the inspiration for each piece was his body, and that became apparent as he used the different pieces in the studio to illustrate his thesis. Also he was very keen to stress the valuable input he gets from eth rest of his 18 person team.

Wonderfully (and he's probably said this before) he pointed out that much of his work involves taking a line for a walk (Paul Klee) in three dimensions.

Genius. I was very impressed.
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