14: Michele Barbe – YGGDRASILL-61, 1991
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Details
Signed and dated verso *“Michele Barbe / YGGDRASILL-61 / 1991”
Michele Barbe’s YGGDRASILL-61 (1991) is named after the mythological World Tree of Norse cosmology — the axis between heaven, earth and underworld. Through texture, pigment and gesture Barbe turns this ancient symbol into an abstract field of movement and energy. Ochre, indigo and crimson layers create a shifting surface that is both geological and cosmic.
Mixed media on canvas the work oscillates between painterly freedom and structural tension. Barbe’s process is physical, almost sculptural: pigment is built, scraped and reworked so that colour can breathe through texture. The central forms are organic, the surrounding marks dissolve — a visual metaphor for creation and decay.
YGGDRASILL-61 is a meditation on continuity and transformation. Barbe’s synthesis of mythology and material process is about the idea of connection — where every gesture, like every root and branch of the cosmic tree, is part of the eternal rhythm of becoming.
Provenance
Private Collection.
Condition
Good vintage condition with some signs of wear. Unframed.
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Michele Barbe is a French painter who creates lyrical abstractions that combine gesture, symbolism and the spiritual power of colour. She studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and began her career in the 1960s. Her work is deeply rooted in the European post-war abstraction movement. Her paintings often feature layered textures, spontaneous brushstrokes and luminous colour contrasts, the emotional architecture of memory and the invisible links between nature and the human mind.
Throughout her career she has exhibited in France and Europe, solo and collective shows. Her compositions are instinctive and meditative, she is fascinated by mythic structures, cosmology and the role of the artist. Her language is rich in rhythm and movement, the eternal dialogue between chaos and harmony, presence and disappearance – a quiet proof of the power of abstraction.
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