Artist Paul Cocksedge (British, b. 1978)
Title Gust of Wind
Date 2019
Medium Cast acrylic sheet
Dimensions Variable
Credit Line Museum commission and purchase with funds from Nancy and Bill Hunt, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 2019.188
About this Work
A stack of paper is scattered by a sudden gust of wind, appearing to freeze in midair. What appears at first to be a chaotic scene reveals itself as a carefully constructed installation by artist Paul Cocksedge. Based in London, Cocksedge pushes the limits of art and design through experimentation and creative problem-solving.
He is fascinated by the elegance and simplicity of curved sheets. Cocksedge has made several sculptural installations and pieces of furniture based on this concept, including a temporary installation of A Gust of Wind at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and a large-scale outdoor sculpture in Beijing. In 2013, he created Poised, a half-ton table made of a single sheet of curled steel with a carefully calculated form that appears to defy gravity.
Cocksedge’s work operates at the nexus of fine art, design, material sciences, and creative engineering. For A Gust of Wind, his studio created a custom material with the appearance and texture of porcelain and the durability of industrial polymers. Bending sheets into several curved configurations, his team hung the components to the ceiling with wire based on a precisely coordinated mapping model. Each piece is secured to two others, creating a network that allows for gentle movement. The installation speaks to the tension between chance and precision that is at the core of the creative process.
