Recipient of the 1994 Turner Prize Antony Gormley (b.1950) is an internationally acclaimed British artist who has revitalized the human figure in sculpture. Often cast from his own body, his lead and iron figures are sites for the exploration of states of being. Generating controversy and passion, Gormley's public sculptures raise key issues about the relation between art, society and the environment as a metaphysical and political realm. In the late 1990s his ongoing investigation of architectural and social space evolved into large-scale interentions, from the 300 closely ranked reinforced concrete blocks ofAllotment(1996) to the 100 solitary cast iron figures facing towards the horizon on the coastal mud flats at Cuxhaven, northern Germany (Another Place 1997).The Angel of the North(1998), commissioned by the city of Gateshead, is one of the most ambitious public sculptures in Britain since the time of Henry Moore.Asian Field a sculptural installation made up of 190,000 clay figures, was created in Guangzhou, China, in 2003 and later toured to Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing.