Barry X Ball

A dual-portrait of the artist’s New York gallerist, realized at 85% scale, in an
exceptional specimen of dramatically-figured, exuberantly-colored translucent
onyx, selected for veination and contrasting opacity so as to differentiate the
mirrored images, exhibiting a layered surface suffused with a ‘sfumato’ overlay of
foliate relief and coincident miniscule circumferential terracing. The artist-
designed integral / modular base / pedestal unit, it’s 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, limestone, 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 deceptively-diminutive bilaterally-
symmetrical 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 - 2008

Mexican Onyx

13-3/8 x 7-1/2 x 7-1/8 inches (34 x 19.1 x 18.1 centimeters)