Friedman Benda will present Capture, British designer Paul Cocksedge’s inaugural solo exhibition, September 12 – October 12, 2013. Capture will introduce new works developed by Cocksedge over the last four and a half years that challenge accepted notions of light and structure, including a large-scale light installation, a collection of dramatic, seemingly impossible, hand-wrought dome lamps, and Poised, a series of unyielding steel tables inspired by the delicacy of paper. Known for exploring the limits of technology, materials, and manufacturing capabilities, Paul Cocksedge Studio has produced both commercial and experimental work, as well as a series of high-profile public installations around the world. CAPTURE finds Cocksedge presenting a new series of concepts informed by his studio’s commitment to technological ingenuity, expanding the boundaries of physics, and the creation of works that are both thought-provoking and unexpected.
The works include Capture, a 5 ¼ ft (1.6 meter) hand-spun aluminum dome that appears to hold the peaceful glow of a warm white light. The piece is informed by a process of reduction—a recurring theme in Cocksedge’s work—as it subtracts the typical infrastructure around light, instead creating a hemisphere that seems to stop light from escaping. For White Light, Cocksedge will create a room within the gallery in which everything and nothing changes. For this work, the designer will create an illuminated mosaic of precisely calibrated and positioned colored panels on the ceiling of the gallery. The ceiling will slowly fade from a spectrum of colors to a warm white light, while the room itself will remain unchanged, demonstrating the ways in which we do and do not perceive the interplay of color and light.
Poised, a half-ton steel table, appears physically improbable upon investigation. Created following an intensive series of calculations regarding gravity, mass, and equilibrium, the table looks as though it is about to fall, but is perfectly weighted and stable.
In addition to these new works, Cocksedge will present three architectural models that take conceptual threads from Capture and White Light and reapply them to architectural settings outside of the gallery space. Central to Cocksedge’s practice is an appreciation for the manner in which people respond to and interact with his designs. As a result, potential real world applications of these new works will be explored in a series of architectural models.
