Yatra, 2004, Granite
While travelling in India in the mid 1980s, Cox was delighted to discover the tiny village of Mahabalipuram in Southern Tamil Nadu, where a large traditional school of sculpture for temple carving was thriving. Here he immersed himself in his work amongst the temple carvers. Observing the movement of the fishermen, he admired the simplicity and perfection of the catamarans, age-old forms made from bound shaped beams of wood. He conceived the idea of replicating these in black basalt as much as a way of preserving the ancient form for posterity as to play on the contrast in weight between the light ships and their mineral models. Another common local sight was the profusion of fence posts hacked directly from granite and Cox combing the two to construct this beautiful vision of stone boats lifted up by a soaring granite sea.