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Photo: Courtsey of Spencer Byles

10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

If you’re headed outdoors this summer, keep an eye out for these ten artists who use nature as their inspiration, canvas, and medium.

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Patrick Dougherty 1 Photo: Courtesy of Patrick Dougherty
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

Patrick Dougherty

In a loving marriage of carpentry and sculpture, Patrick Dougherty creates massive stick art installations that evoke giant tumbleweeds. His works– which have been featured around the world– have an ever-present sense of movement and are often constructed on such a massive scale that visitors can move through them, experiencing the space they create as well as the visual effect. Among his more impressive works are Cell Division at Savannah College of Art and Design (which took over an entire facade), and Just Around The Corner, in which Doughterty blended his art directly into Nature itself by weaving a series of shelters out of Earth materials.

Beartooth Ensamble Studio
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

Ensamble Studio

A self-described “cross-functional team,” Ensamble Studio was founded by architects Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa in 2000. True to their founders’ professional roots, the group’s projects have a highly-structured flare, often evoking infrastructure more than anything else. (It’s of little surprise that in addition to their art pieces, Ensamble Studio designs buildings.) Among their more notable pieces was the giant earthen Beartooth Portal, which debuted in 2015 in Tippet Rise Montana, and which acts as a massive, framing structure against the low-lying landscape.

Cornelia Konrad Photo: Courtesy of Cornelia Konrad
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

Cornelia Konrad

Though she works largely with natural materials, German artist Cornelia Konrad‘s work often appears to be at odds with natural forces; her pieces frequently seem to defy gravity and are engineered to feature elements of suspension, almost like some magical process paused halfway. Her work appears across the world in public spaces, sculpture parks, and private gardens; among her more notable works is Schleudersitz, a cheeky piece that stages a public bench within a giant slingshot.

Spencer Byles 1 Photo: Courtsey of Spencer Byles
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

Spencer Byles

Forest sculptor Spencer Byles creates works out of natural materials in their native habitat. The English-born artist often leaves his pieces for months at a time, allowing nature to shape them, before returning to complete his work. He sees the process as an essential component of his art, allowing the works to be an integrated part of the environment, rather than a forced creation that pervades over it. His collection A Year In A French Forest epitomizes his organic style, bringing together the mysticism and familiarity of the outdoors.

Simon Beck 1 Photo: Courtesy of Simon Beck
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

Simon Beck

In a category all this own, Simon Beck specializes in snow art, creating massive scale etchings in snow. The pieces often have a symmetry or geometric aesthetic to them, creating a pleasing contrast with the organic shapes of snowfall. Beck’s pieces range from 2.5 to 10 acres and are made by foot: he uses his snow shoes to create the works, a process which can take up to 12 hours to complete. Because of this, Beck sees the process as simultaneously an artistic endeavor and an athletic one, invariably influenced by the “challenging conditions of the environment.”

David Best Photo: Adrian Accaira/Flickr
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

David Best

Best known for his Burning Man creations, David Best is an American sculptor who creates giant temples out of recycled, salvaged materials for the infamous desert rave to burn down. “Burning structures has become very important to me,” Best told The Telegraph in 2016. In this way, Best often works more with the natural element of fire, rather than earth (though his materials are often wood): fire as a fundamental force dominates and dictates his approach.

Hour Glass Photo: Courtesy of Jaakko Pernu
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

Jaakko Pernu

Sculptor and environmental artist Jaako Pernu draws inspiration from his childhood in rural Finland, whose idle hours were spent watching and helping his father build wooden boats. His oversized works have been featured around the world, with a focus on public site specific works. “My theme is the influence of humans on nature– the influence of nature on humans,” Pernu says of his work. In addition to his own agency over his art, Pernu enjoys the weathering effects of nature. His recent work, Hour Glass— which debuted in Mexico in 2015– epitomizes this aspect.

Walter Mason Photo: Courtesy of Walter Mason
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

Walter Mason

Operating on a more modest scale than some of the other artists on this list, Walter Mason tends to focus on the details and delicate subtleties of nature, rearranging elements to produce “surreal scenes” evoking the “simultaneous complexity and simplicity” found in the outdoors. His work often creates unexpected patterns, creating trompe d’oeuil-like pieces in unexpected places. His recent display, Found, brings together some of his more exemplary works.

Artist Portrait Pioneer 2016 Photo: Courtesy of Stephen Talasnik
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

Stephen Talanik

While growing up in a landscape of oil refineries, shipyards, an airport, and a cemetery, Stephen Talanik often built small sculptures out of salvaged materials. Today, his works have been shown in the Met, the National Gallery of Art in DC, the Pompidou in Paris, and the Whitney. Characterized by their organic architecture, his pieces often play on straight lines, drawing them together into less strictly organized shapes. A notable work is his Stream, a large-scale installation visitors can path through– incidentally, his first major outdoor commission, which went up at Storm King Art Center.

Presidio Trails 2011 Documentation Brian Fahey
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10 Earth Work Artists You Should Know

Andy Goldworthy

Of course, no list would be complete without Andy Goldworthy, the British sculptor who is one of (if not the biggest) current names in land art. If you’ve spent any amount of time on the more “hippie” sides of the internet, you’ve probably encountered a picture of Goldworthy’s work: his pieces tend to be visually intense objects that stand apart from their landscape while making use of organic materials. (Many of his more famous pieces are the circular eye-hole like works that often look like portals to another world.) On permanent display in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is Wood Line, a year-round favorite.

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