Alan Sonfist Sonfist is an artist who has long explored forms and processes from the natural landscape. In the 1960s, Sonfist was among the first artists to conceive of ecological and environmental functions as the basis of an artwork. Unlike earth artists, who use virgin environments as fields for formal modification, Sonfist works by recreating natural landscapes in urban places, such as downtown New York or Paris. "I see myself as a visual archaeologist....to bring the past into the present" ALAN SONFIST ("Interview by Robert Rosenblum", 1969-1989, p.3)