“I refer to the space of a body, the use of our body as a tool, as material.”
Antony Gormley
(b. London, United Kingdom 1950)
Antony Gormley’s body of work investigates the human form. Often incorporating casts of his own body into his sculptures, his work confronts fundamental concepts such as how the human body relates to nature, time, and space. For the artist, the work is just as much about what’s not there—the body used to make the cast—as the physical object on view. Gormley explains that he began making casts of his body because “it’s the one bit of the material world that I have to live inside.” The resulting works, however, “are not visual objects. They are displacement of space,” and are significant for the empty void inside the case, not just the mold itself.
In 1997 Gormley was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) and was made a knight in the New Year's Honours list in 2014. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, an Honorary Doctor of the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity and Jesus Colleges, Cambridge. Gormley has been a Royal Academician since 2003. Gormley’s solo exhibition include the National Gallery, Singapore (2021); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2019); White Cube Mason’s Yard, London (2019); Philadelphia Museum of Art (2019); White Cube, Hong Kong (2019); Uffizi Gallery, Florence (2019); Xavier Hufkens Gallery, Brussels (2017); National Portrait Gallery (2016); Royal Academy of Art, London (2011); Tate Britain, London (2004); and the Contemporary Sculpture Center, Tokyo (2001). Permanent public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place (Crosby Beach, England), Inside Australia (Lake Ballard, Western Australia), Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands) and Chord (MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA). He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994.
Gormley lives and works in London.
