DRIFT Dallas sculpture by Gerry Judah, Texas landscape architecture installation, USA design art
DRIFT sculpture by Gerry Judah in Dallas, Texas
post updated March 30, 2024
Installation Design: sculpture by Gerry Judah
Location: Olympus crossroad to North Lake, Belt Line Road, near Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas, United States of America
Photos by Dan Sellers
Nov 27, 2020
DRIFT, 2020, Dallas, Texas
In Texas, the Belt Line Road stretches thirty miles in a straight line through the hills and valleys between Dallas and Fort Worth. If you pause at the Olympus crossroad to North Lake, you will find DRIFT, the latest sculpture by Gerry Judah, dazzling in the sun like the bleached bones of an ancient leviathan. The installation; cut, welded and ground from steel has its origins in the green fields of England and the mountains of New Zealand. It’s the latest in a series of sculptures exploring writhing, twisting forms assembled from stacks of steel blocks.
At 6.3 metres high and 13 metres long, DRIFT spreads horizontally, a counterpoint to Gerry Judah’s MAZDA, 2015 sculpture at Goodwood Festival of Speed, West Sussex, and JACOB’S LADDER, 2018 sculpture in the deep hills of Gibbs Farm Sculpture Park, New Zealand. Three hundred and ten steel blocks varying in thickness from 60mm to 140mm are carefully stacked, each at a slightly different angle to the one before, to form a gently flowing wisp, floating in the air like eighteen and a half tonnes of frozen steel smoke.
Built for a huge temperature range and high winds – being at the southern end of Tornado Alley – DRIFT was engineered to meet the most demanding American wind and seismic codes. The sculpture was designed, engineered, fabricated and painted in the United Kingdom and shipped to the United States in three custom-built crates ready for lifting and bolting on-site by a local US crew.
DRIFT was commissioned by Billingsley Company as an indelible gateway into The Sound at Cypress Waters community. “After being enchanted by JACOB’S LADDER, we sought out the artist and began a conversation with him regarding a site-specific sculpture for The Sound. We provided Mr Judah with topographical information and he became familiar with our landscape intentions. The sculpture he designed beautifully accommodates the complexities of the location; DRIFT provides a dynamic and gripping artistic foundation for this community,” said Billingsley Company Partner, Lucy Billingsley.
DRIFT sculpture by Gerry Judah in Texas – Installation Information
Client: BILLINGSLEY COMPANY
Artist: GERRY JUDAH
Engineers: DIALES
Fabricators: LITTLEHAMPTON WELDING
Photographer: DAN SELLERS
Gerry Judah Ltd · John Mark Cottage, Florentia Village · Vale Road · London, England N4 1TD · United Kingdom
DRIFT, Dallas, Texas sculpture by Gerry Judah images / information received from GJ 271120
Location: Dallas, Texas, TX, USA
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Comments / photos for the DRIFT, Dallas, Texas sculpture by Gerry Judah Architecture in the United States of America page welcome.