Barry X Ball

A dual-portrait, realized at 100% scale, in the rare, uniquely un-figured black
marble known as ‘Belge Noir’, exhibiting a layered ‘sfumato’ surface suffused
with miniscule opposed-diagonal fluting overlaying a coincident enveloping
foliate relief. In culmination, a glistening “Rorschach” garland - symmetrically
splashed, sharply-delineated, avian, sinister - traverses the work’s midline. The
artist-designed integral / modular base / pedestal unit, its tapering parabolic
sweep flowing into the sculpture’s glass-polished flute stem (which, in turn,
terminates in a silhouetted arboreal fringe), conceived in parallel with the
sculpture, precisely-fabricated in stainless steel, acrylic-spray-lacquered
aluminum and wood (and a variety of subsidiary materials) by a studio-
coordinated consortium of disparate fabricators, is reminiscent, alternately, at its
apex, of traditional ‘socles’ and Saarinen furniture pedestals. Here, in an attempt to
reinvent and reinvigorate the sub-genre of romantic portrait sculpture, the
artist has conjoined his signature fever-pitch execution intensity and a newfound
conceptual tenderness. The resultant bilateral Janusian abstraction, created with
deep reverence for and specific focus on the history of sculpture, makes an
expansive case for the critical reconsideration of prevailing contemporary
practice, while simultaneously probing both the subject’s psychology and her
complex relationship to the artist. The stony double-surrogate captures, in soft
Galatean contravention of its obdurate materiality, a moment of poignant
reflection, reflected.

2007 - 2010

Belgian Black Marble

15-3/4 x 8-7/8 x 8-5/16 inches (40.0 x 22.5 x 21.1 centimeters)