"I was pleased that this drawing could be brought into the context of the exhibition. It is a work from 2006, when I was one of many artists invited to propose and realize an intervention in what would be the new Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. A storied exhibition space with a long history was moving to a converted warehouse redesigned by architect Doug Garofalo. There were two existing stairways, and Doug opened up a third.

This project was the first time I had engaged the possibility that a color, or colors, could invoke a musical tonal range. I am not a musician, I do not read music, but I listen carefully and have through my life. I’m especially interested in chamber music, and in fact, other work has taken the subject of chamber music in relation to ‘the chamber’—to the scale of domestic space.

In this instance, it’s a trio— an imagined trio for red, yellow, and blue. Each of the three staircases had a dominance of one. In the space itself, each stair had a small, painted metal bar to the left and right of each stair. The score, if you will, would be hearing one set of notes along the right edge as you ascend, and one along the right edge as you descend. In each staircase, red, yellow, and blue are in sequence twice. Otherwise, the conversation could be left and right, also sequential."

—Julia Fish, 2026