The present work is a striking example encapsulating the essence of Robert Indiana’s highly prolific oeuvre. The diptych, each written ‘He’ and ‘She’, is a rhythmic jumble of colours and form, numbers and letters, positive and negative spaces. The mixture of elements are elegantly precise, creating an image of claritys within the complexity. Lettering occupies the central space, followed by the star shape contained in a circle. Cutting through this myriad of shapes is a number one, which fits neatly within the square edges of the canvas. Indiana, often acknowledged as central to the pop art movement of the 1960s, also embraced stylistic elements and formal concerns of Hard Edge, Minimalist and Op art. The letters and numbers may share the visual language of Jasper Jones or Andy Warhol, but this is translated through formal abstraction and graphic design which echo the colourfield reductions of Jack Youngerman, Ellsworth Kelly and early Frank Stella. The highly original body of works explore American identity, personal history, and the power of abstraction and language. Self proclaimed an “American artist of signs,” the geometric claritys and immediate legibility of Indiana’s work derives from road signs, route numbers and billboards, all of which formed a ubiquitous part of his native mid-Western landscape. The intricate layering of shapes, letters and numbers are executed with impeccable precision, resulting in a dialogue between the verbal and the visual, bringing the image out of words and words out of images.

Indiana’s paintings create the greatest conceptual complexity through the simplest outward form achievable, composing the canvas how a poet composes a poem. In fact, Indiana was undecided on whether to become an artist or a poet for a period of t.mes . Condensing and simplifying until not a single component can be further changed or omitted, Indiana’s canvases are poetically articulate. He She revisits his single word diptychs such as Eat-Die, which are considered one of Indiana’s most important series of works. His omnipresent five-pointed star is centrally placed and cuts through a monolithic number one, while intersecting hues of oxidized red, blue, white and gold spell out the enigmatic visual vocabulary. Each color, number and motif, meticulously included, is charged with his experiences, making the work highly autobiographical whilst remaining within the realms of collects ively familiar symbols, forms, and expression. Each a potent narrative tool, the colourful interplay between the geometric and linguistic create a codified and self-reflective lexicon.

Indiana is undoubtedly one of the most preeminent artists in American Art, having pushed the possibilities of Western art through a constant probings of the subtext of everyday life. Formulated through a balanced harmony of a wide circle of artistic influences, India’s oeuvre is an encapsulation of American art through the decades, and his legacy has unquestionably influenced the greater narrative of the Western art canon.