The sculpture was created by the artist Antony Gormley as his own response to the site, which had already been chosen as the location for a ‘landmark’ work of public art. It is a stark, otherwise unremarkable, skyline site visible from a distance. The artist has described how he felt this called for a feature which would link between earth and sky.
Gormley has said of the Angel:
"The hill top site is important and has the feeling of being a megalithic mound. When you think of the mining that was done underneath the site, there is a poetic resonance. Men worked beneath the surface in the dark. Now in the light, there is a celebration and visibility of this industry.
“The face will not have individual features. The effect of the piece is in the alertness, the awareness of space and the gesture of the wings - they are not flat, they're about 3.5 degrees forward and give a sense of embrace.”
“It is important to me that the Angel is rooted in the ground - the complete antithesis of what an angel is, floating about in the ether. It has an air of mystery. You make things because they cannot be said.”
View More »
