Marco Cochrane (born 1962) is an American sculptor born in

Venice, Italy Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islan ...

, best known for his large-scale steel sculptures of nude women.

Early and personal life

Cochrane was born in Venice to American artists and raised in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

. When he was seven years old, a friend, then aged nine, was abducted and raped; Cochrane recalls " mom told me about it in way too much gory detail. It really shocked me," adding he was also surprised when "nobody did anything — and nobody ever talked about it again" and wondered "if he had realized she was a person, he wouldn't have done it." Cochrane is self-taught in sculpture and married to Julia Whitelaw.

''The Bliss Project''

''Bliss Dance,'' ''Truth is Beauty'' and ''R-Evolution'' collectively form ''The Bliss Project'', a

trilogy A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, and video games, and are less common in other art forms. Three-part wor ...

of steel sculptures. The model for each piece was the singer and dancer Deja Solis. Cochrane met Solis in 2006 and asked her to model for a work in progress. During their fifth collaboration, Solis advanced the idea for the pose that would be sculpted as ''Bliss Dance''. A three-stage process was used to create each final piece: # Cochrane sculpts Solis in clay as she holds the pose, and then casts a -scale plaster model from the clay # Cochrane sculpts an intermediate clay model enlarged by 3× over the plaster model using a

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

# Cochrane and volunteers weld a final steel model enlarged by 3× over the intermediate clay using a pantograph The finished sculptures use steel rod and tubing connected by steel balls for the structure, finished with a stainless steel mesh skin lit by LEDs. The first piece, entitled ''Bliss Dance'' (2010), reaches in height and, after being introduced at

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

, was given a location on San Francisco's Treasure Island, where it remained until May 18, 2015. ''Bliss Dance'' later moved permanently to The Park, an entertainment venue near

T-Mobile Arena T-Mobile Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Paradise, Nevada. Opened on April 6, 2016, it is the home arena of the Vegas Golden Knights of the National Hockey League (NHL). A joint venture between MGM Resorts International and Anschutz En ...

on the

Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of ...

, which opened on April 4, 2016. It weighs more than . '' Truth is Beauty'' (2013) which rises to and weighs , was first shown at Burning Man in 2013. A smaller scale piece by Cochrane will be showcased at the Renwick Gallery. It was a response to the rape and abduction of a childhood friend, and moved to a permanent location at the San Leandro Tech Campus in the fall of 2016, where it is visible from the San Leandro BART station. The piece was chosen by developer Westlake Urban to fulfill the city's requirement to spend one percent of the project budget on art. '' R-Evolution'' (2015), the third and final sculpture in ''The Bliss Project'' series, debuted at Burning Man in 2015 and has not yet found a permanent home. In 2019, the

Union Square Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

Business Improvement District studied the possibility of bringing ''R-Evolution'' to

Hallidie Plaza Hallidie Plaza is a public square located at the entrance to Powell Street Station (the third-busiest BART station as of 2015) on Market Street in the Union Square area of downtown San Francisco, California, United States. Hallidie Plaza was desig ...

, the entrance to .

References

External links

* *

''Bliss Dance''

''Bliss Dance'' at Atlas Obscura
* *

''Truth is Beauty''

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cochrane, Marco 20th-century American sculptors Living people 1962 births Sculptors from Venice 21st-century American sculptors