Marco Cochrane’s 48-foot sculpture towers over San Francisco’s Embarcadero

If you haven’t noticed the massive woman in front of the Ferry Building on Market Street in San Francisco, take time to make the trek. We recommend going at night when her eerie lighting cycles through blue and purple. This incredible artwork—R-Evolution, a representation of a woman standing 48 feet tall—makes anyone passing by have to acknowledge her power and vitality as she stands poised, arms open and ready to spring (or maybe that’s just how we see it!).

R-Evolution was first seen on the Black Rock Desert of Nevada at Burning Man 2015, and a foiled plan would have originally had her comparing heights with the Dewey Monument in Union Square. (That 85-foot statue in front of Macy’s is Winged Victory atop her column, reportedly modeled after Alma Spreckels, who gave us the Legion of Honor museum. But we digress!) However, fears that the statue’s weight would bring her down into the parking garage below Union Square prompted her venue change to the Embarcadero. Here’s a rendering of how she would have looked at Union Square.

R-Evolution is part of a triad of sculptures called The Bliss Project by Marco Cochrane and depicts “a woman, Deja Solis, expressing her humanity,” according to the press release. R-Evolution began as a hand-sculpted three-quarters life-sized clay figure. Using a medieval-era enlargement tool called a pantograph, Cochrane transformed that into a 15-foot clay version, and then again used the pantograph to triple the sculpture to her final metal form. The finished sculpture is composed of steel rod and tubing, with two layers of geodesic triangles (which required 55,000 individual welds) covered by a stainless-steel mesh. Because of the statue’s construction, she is partially transparent, which creates the sense that she is both majestically strong and grounded to the earth, but also ethereal.

Cochrane, who began sculpting in his 20s, was born to American artists in Venice, Italy, in 1962 and raised in Northern California during that era of change. “As a result, Marco learned respect for oneness, balance and the imperative to make the world a better place,” reports the press release. “In particular, he identified with the female struggle with oppression and saw feminine energy and power as critical to the world’s balance.”

Since the statue’s erection, some folks online have taken issue with her nudity. We think she’s amazing!