Forever is a turning point, a moment in my work where the sculpture no longer carries the weight of a base. After years of grounding each figure in bronze foundations, I longed to let them go, to let them stand in their own balance and grace. In this limited edition of twelve, Forever captures the quiet endurance of love and the courage to rise unbound. Each piece, hand finished in bronze, becomes a timeless ode to freedom, poise, and devotion a piece of art that stands just as surely as the spirit it represents.
Independence
This sculpture stands freely, embodying the elegance of self-support and the beauty of a form that finds its own balance and grace.
Timeless Endurance
Crafted to last for generations, this piece is a testament to enduring art that will remain timeless through the ages.
Display Your Way
Whether placed on a pedestal or left to stand alone, this sculpture offers the freedom to display it in the way that best suits your space and style.
The hands in clay, from fire to bronze casting two souls 'With One Breath.'
I am an artist driven by passion. I only sculpt to manifest ideas and emotions that have to do with a devotion to ecstasy and love. One of my favorite pastimes is to look at people or photos of people who are experiencing a human and soulful connection with another person. The sensuous world provides the artist with a vocabulary forged by the most common human experience … love.
In the piece “With One Breath" I wanted to create a balance of need, want, desire and rest. When we love another person with trust, there is a place where the two of you can go to let go of the world and be in your own private domain. This landscape of the love created between two people woven with trust and faith becomes the fortress to keep that love nourished. When you find yourself in this protected and alluring harbor it is almost as though you only have one heart, one breath.
Moondance represents love’s contrasting forces. A paradoxical experience of love’s gravity and levity. When I started to sketch this sculpture, my idea was to manifest the dance of affection and attachment through figures intertwined in a movement that choreographs the sublimity of shared human experience.
My hope is that Moondance can be a dialogue with the viewer of the dynamics of love, its capacity to anchor us to the most profound aspects of our being while simultaneously liberating us from earthly constraints. I wanted Moondance to embody the transparency and lightness of a genuine connection, illustrating the rise and fall of human emotions. This sculpture is my way of finding and trying to understand the intricate and transformative interactions of human connection – a nuanced, yet deeply passionate exploration into the dance of love.
Anais Nin wrote in her diary, “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, and other souls.” With my piece, ‘The Journey’ I realized that whenever we reach out to another person in an intimate way we are beginning a journey. It is an invitation to share our love our passion and our hope. We may even get lost with this person on our journey, but sometimes we find new paths of passion that would not have been discovered without getting lost. I have learned in loving that at times you just stand still with that person and that becomes the journey. To linger is to suggest that it is not the destination or some perfect place you are trying to arrive with your love, but the moment of realization that you are with that person you desire to spend time with. In this way your stillness becomes the direction of your affection.
I began making bronze sculpture and writing poetry as a way to reflect my own life's journey. There is always a correlation between my individual sculptures and my poetry.
"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you, I am here to live out loud."
BOOKS, DRAWINGS AND ARTIST JOURNAL
View my drawings, explore my books, and read the Artist Journal
An Artist Journal reflection on the daydream places that feel remembered, the spiritual recognition held in a glance, and the dark feminine visual poetry I create from those inner worlds.
If you've walked past the corner of Northeast Eighth Street and Bellevue Way in Bellevue, Washington, you've likely stopped in your tracks. Endless Celebration, a soaring 51-foot cast bronze sculpture weighing nearly three tons, commands the plaza in front of Bellevue Place with a quiet, breathtaking audacity.
A Commission Born from Community
When Kemper Freeman Jr. commissioned California-based sculptor Gesso Cocteau to create a landmark work for Bellevue Place, the brief was as open as the sky the sculpture reaches toward. Cocteau's response was characteristically bold: two dancers, one figure lifting the other skyward, defying gravity with trust and joy.
"I wanted to create a subject of dialogue dedicated to bringing the community into the art," Cocteau explained in a 2005 interview. "Without human interaction, sculpture would be void, it would be empty of emotion."
Playing with Balance and Gravity
Balance is a recurring obsession in Cocteau's practice, not just physical balance, but the emotional equilibrium between hard work and a good life. Endless Celebration embodies this philosophy literally: one figure dares to hold the other aloft, declaring its space in the sky with trust.
The name itself draws from poetry. It evokes celebration, romanticism, and joy, the spirit of a community where people can work hard and enjoy the good life.
The Challenge of Scale
Creating a 51-foot public sculpture presents unique engineering and artistic challenges. Without the ability to stand the piece upright during fabrication, Cocteau had to envision the final work entirely in her mind, and ensure the large-scale execution remained faithful to the approved maquette. The sculpture had to read beautifully from many angles and distances, from a passing car to a pedestrian standing at its base.
Monumental Sculpture as Private Conversation
For Cocteau, public sculpture is never purely public. "Monumental sculpture should represent emotions beyond words," she says. "It should engage the viewer in a private conversation, each individual finding their own interpretation."
Endless Celebration has done exactly that for Bellevue since its installation. It is a landmark, yes, but more than that, it is an invitation.
Article from The Bellevue Reporter
"Endless Celebration, a 51-foot cast bronze sculpture by Gesso Cocteau, photographed at dusk at Bellevue Place, Washington"
Explore the sculpture in tabletop and midsize bronze editions at gessococteau.com #gessococteaubronze #gessococteausculpture
Kiss of Life is a contemporary figurative sculpture about intimacy, desire, and the soul. Through two elongated figures joined in a kiss, the work explores how love can become breath, recognition, and transformation.
