Sir Antony Gormley urges Sun readers to get creative in lockdown with The Great Big Art Exhibition
HE is the genius who created the Angel Of The North sculpture.
Now Sir Antony Gormley wants Sun readers to show off their amazing art skills, too.
With the nation’s galleries closed due to lockdown, our most famous sculptor is helping to launch the country’s biggest ever art show.
The Great Big Art Exhibition is encouraging millions of people all over the country to turn their homes into mini galleries by creating and displaying their own artworks.
And Sir Antony, 70, is calling on YOU — there is no age limit — to create a picture or sculpture of an animal and put it on show in your window or front garden, just like some creative kids who The Sun snapped showing off their artworks in a street in Acton, West London.
And Sir Antony is offering an incredible prize of one of his own handmade sculptures of a dog for the best one.
‘FINGERS ITCHING TO DO SOMETHING’
In his first big interview with The Sun, Sir Antony reveals how he has been passing the time in lockdown by making little models of dogs.
At his home in Norfolk, he and wife Vicken live with a whippet called Hector, two horses and a flock of chickens.
He says: “Pets have become incredibly important in lockdown for companionship and comfort.
“There is only so much box-set television you can take, isn’t there?
Antony's tips for artists
- THE Great Big Art Exhibition is open to children and adults – there is no age limit.
- SEE firstsite.uk, where you can download a brilliant workbook packed with ideas. The site also features lots more information on the exhibition.
- YOU can do a painting and put it in your window, like youngsters living in a street in Acton, West London. Include the project in home schooling.
- YOU might want to create a picture of your favourite pet or an animal you have seen when you are out and about.
- YOU can also do a sculpture, or create a model, knit an animal or make one out of material. Put it in your window or on your balcony, garden or forecourt.
- OR let your imagination run riot and create an animal, insect, bird or fish the world has never seen.
- You could also team up – safely under Covid rules – with your neighbours and make a joint artwork. Or even recruit the whole street.
How to enter
ONCE your artwork is finished, display it in your window or outside your home and take a photo on your phone.
Upload your photos at mcb777.fun/art.
There is no limit on how many entries you can submit.
Leave your name, age if you are under 18, address and a contact number and tell us a bit about your artwork. If you are under 16, get an adult to leave their details so we can contact them on your behalf.
Entries close at midnight on Friday, February 12.
A panel of judges will choose a selection to be published in The Sun and on Sun Online.
From that shortlist, our panel will choose a winner, who will receive a clay dog made by Sir Antony. The judges’ decision is final.
- See the terms and conditions here.
“It’s not part of my artwork, but I have been making dogs, often at night, just little ones out of clay.
“Evening comes and my fingers are itching to do something and I make a little dog. They are all made out of an apple-size lump of clay.
“I have now done about six dogs. Each is very different and they are no known breed.
“They are not very large and they will go on the windowsill.”
And you could get one on your windowsill by creating any piece of artwork of any animal and sending a picture of it to us.
The sculptor won the Turner Prize in 1994 and has created iconic pieces worth millions of pounds all around the world as well as his Angel of the North in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
One of the most dramatic is Another Place, 100 life-size cast-iron figures facing the sea along two miles of Crosby Beach, near Liverpool.
The Great Big Art Exhibition came about after Britain’s top galleries — already hit by falling visitors because of the pandemic — were forced to close yet again for the latest lockdown.
Inspired by homes with pictures of rainbows in the windows to honour front-line NHS workers, organisers decided to turn Britain into a massive art gallery.
The event will run to the end of April, with animals the theme for the next two weeks.
Then will be portraits, chosen by contemporary artist Sonia Boyce.
In the weeks to come, different themes will be chosen by other artists.
These include Anish Kapoor, who created Cloud Gate — a shiny sculpture known as The Bean — in Chicago’s Millennium Park, and contemporary artist Ai Weiwei.
Sir Antony came up with the theme of animals after watching them during lockdown. He says: “The funny thing about animals is that they express aliveness.
‘SILVER LINING TO THIS FUNNY TIME’
“You take your dog into an open space and whoosh, they’re away, running about chasing smells, looking out for other dogs.
“They are highly social but really investigative. Without getting too new age or hippy about it, I think animals are our spirit avatars.”
You can put your painting or any piece of artwork of an animal in your window or garden in the next two weeks and upload a picture of it at mcb777.fun/art.
We will publish some of the best in The Sun and on our website.
A panel of experts will then choose the winner, who will receive one of Sir Antony’s clay dogs.
He says: “There’s a silver lining to this funny time we are living through, people are rediscovering their creativity, and the Great Big Art Exhibition is an opportunity to allow that explosion of creativity to be seen.
“During lockdown we can make our own art at home, rather than having to go to see it in a museum or a gallery. There are no rules about the artwork you can make.
There’s a silver lining to this funny time we are living through, people are rediscovering their creativity.
“I just want people to reflect the experience and behaviour of all the living things with which we share this wonderful world.
“It could be a perfect portrait of your lovely moggie or your pet dog.
“Or just let your imagination run free. I’m not terribly worried whether you do a picture or a sculpture of an amoeba or a blue whale.
“It doesn’t have to be biologically accurate.
“I want people to think about what animals they feel close to or what animals they dream about.
“Maybe it is an animal that actually doesn’t exist yet. There is nothing wrong with you inventing a completely new life form.
“I’m encouraging everyone who takes part to let your imagination run riot. It can be your pet cat or dog, maybe an animal you have seen on your travels or in lockdown.
“I’m expecting everything from spirogyra to whale sharks.
“Whale sharks are good because they have such lovely spots. Their whole backs are like the biggest noughts and crosses you ever imagined.
“It doesn’t have to be a painting. You could do a sculpture. It could be any size.
“You could put a plasticine dragon in your windowsill and it could be tiny but it could be very powerful.
“Or you could also get together with your mates — following social distancing rules of course — and make a dragon out of old garden canes or bits of steel, depending on how ambitious and how well-equipped you are and what sort of people are in your bubble.
“Don’t be frightened if your animal doesn’t look like any animal you have ever seen in your life.
“Create your own. It could look like an elephant or it could look like something that hasn’t yet been born. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes out of people’s imaginations.”
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