Andy Scott

Andy Scott is a Scottish sculptor who builds monumental horses and human figures from welded steel. His best-known works are The Kelpies, the 30-meter horse heads beside the Forth and Clyde Canal at Falkirk, and, in our catalogue, Beacon of Hope (2007), the 19.5-meter woman holding up a ring at Thanksgiving Square in Belfast.

He is not to be confused with the Victorian architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, designer of St Pancras and many cathedral restorations.

Life

Scott was born in Glasgow and graduated from the Glasgow School of Art with a degree in Fine Art Sculpture in 1986, followed by a postgraduate diploma in 1987. His father was a draftsman, and an early feel for engineering shows in his work. He set up his first studio in Glasgow and later worked in Australia and the United States. Several Scottish universities have given him honorary doctorates.

Technique

Scott's signature method is to build a figure from hundreds or thousands of hand-cut pieces of steel welded over an armature, so the surface reads as a lattice of plates and gaps. The figures stay recognizably classical in pose and anatomy, but light passes through them and they change with the weather. His works range from about 3 to 30 meters high and are mostly commissioned for public sites.

Key works

• The Kelpies (completed 2013), Falkirk: two horse heads named after mythical Scottish water spirits and modeled on Clydesdale horses.
• Beacon of Hope (2007), Belfast: a stainless steel and bronze figure symbolizing peace and reconciliation, popularly nicknamed "Nuala with the Hula."
• Heavy Horse, beside the M8 motorway between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
• Arria, Cumbernauld, and the statue of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow (2018).

For more monumental public art, see famous sculptures.