The artist’s enigmatic works, which aim to improve upon historic masterpieces, are the result of thousands of hours of work by both man and machine
Glancing around Barry X Ball’s three-story, 20,000-square-foot New York studio, one would think they’re on Italy’s Tuscan coast, the heart of the world’s stone industry. A six-ton block of Belgian black marble and some 50 boulders of Mexican (Baja California) onyx—the artist’s favorite stone—are among the 400 blocks amassed over 25 years. “I have my little corner of nature here,” says Ball, who visits Italy between four and six times a year in search of entrancing stones, sourced from international quarries, for his seemingly impossibly detailed sculptures, which can take up to 10,000 hours to craft. “Stone is a bit like real estate. You see a beautiful piece, and you may never come upon it again.”
