Robert Barry

This drawing from 1983 is a study for a full-scale work exhibited the same year at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. At the center of the design is the image of a tree, barely perceptible under layers of brilliant blue paint. The words inscribed around the perimeter of the composition act as an extension of the branches and roots of the tree. The open-ended and tentative nature of these phrases-especially “seems,” “not often,” and “allowed to”-suggest undefined actions or an unknown state of being.

The wall piece in this study was among several blue walls realized full-scale in a 1983 exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York and subsequently painted over. In all of these works, Barry used a carefully orchestrated presentation of words, shapes, colors, and images to build a conceptual artwork which is nonetheless boldly visual. The core of this design is a drawing of a tree, almost fully obscured under a blinding layer of bright blue paint. Against this backdrop, words and phrases radiate out in a circle like roots or branches, suggesting the fundamental role of language in art. These ambiguous and poetic fragments-“allowed to,” “then,” “seems”-resemble a cluster of incomplete thoughts or ideas. As viewers slowly read the phrases and perceive the subtle under-drawing, the words generate an endless variety of new associations and interpretations, leading to multiple open-ended conversations with the artist.