Sculptor Antony Gormley

Gormley is preparing to unveil his latest work based on the plaster cast bodies of 230 volunteers at the Baltic Arts Centre in Gateshead.

For his latest project Gormley took plaster moulds of a cross-section of naked people from the ages of two to 85 to act as the base for hundreds of the metal sculptures.

The exhibition Domain Field

gets its first viewing on Thursday, (15 May 2003)and opens to the public on Saturday.

The moulds were used as the foundation for Gormley to then produce metal sculptures from thin stainless steels strips which will fill an entire floor of the gallery.

"They have been welded together to create 'T' patterns to create what I call a random matrix within the volume of the mould of each person," the artist told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"Its kind of like an energy field or a kind of electricity that is created by these trajectories."
The finished sculptures will be made from steel bars
Gormley, best known for his giant Angel of the North sculpture, is pleased with the way the project has turned out.

"I was a bit worried that they were going to be a bit heavy and certainly after we had welded them they were covered in soot that is a by-product of welding," he said.

"But we sent them to Birmingham to be pickled in acid and they have come back very bright and sparkly."

Gormley said he is not yet sure what he has created or what it means but called it an "extraordinary evocation of energy".

Skin and bone

Although the volunteers who posed for the original casts may struggle to identify themselves in the mass of metal structures, Gormley says that using the models was vital.

"What I think these works do is they abstract from the body the attitude that life writes a story in the language of our bodies, which is the language before spoken language and that attitude is what I have abstracted from blood, skin, bone and muscle and it is presented in a completely new way."

Angel of the North is Gormley's most famous work
One volunteer, Jo Curry, was preparing to see the finished result of her sitting for Gormley.

She told the Today programme that she could not pass up the opportunity to sit for such an acclaimed sculptor.

She said "On another level I thought it would be an absolute giggle. You're never normally get asked on a Tuesday morning to get stripped off and covered in cling film and then get plastered."