Painted in 2005, this large-scale oil on linen belongs to Mark Grotjahn's celebrated Butterfly series, one of the most recognizable bodies of work to emerge from American painting in the early twenty-first century. The composition radiates outward from a central vanishing point, deploying layered, feather-like brushstrokes that fan symmetrically across the canvas in a graduated progression from pale, luminous blue at the center to deep, saturated blue at the edges. That movement from light to dark is not merely descriptive but structural, generating a sense of optical pulse and spatial recession that rewards sustained looking. The work sits at an intersection of geometric precision and gestural energy, drawing on the legacy of perspective drawing while simultaneously dismantling it through the accumulation of painterly mark-making. Grotjahn began developing the Butterfly series in the early 2000s, and works from this period are now held in major institutional collections worldwide, including SFMOMA, which holds this very piece. At 190.5 by 124.5 centimeters, the canvas commands significant physical presence, and the tonal range within the single blue palette demonstrates Grotjahn's nuanced control of color as both optical phenomenon and emotional register. The monochromatic constraint, far from limiting the composition, intensifies its meditative quality, inviting viewers to move between the almost scientific regularity of the fanning lines and the warmly impastoed surface texture of each individual stroke. For collectors, a 2005 Butterfly in blue represents a particularly sought-after configuration, combining institutional provenance with a palette that reads as both rigorous and quietly lyrical. The work is signed and offered without a frame, allowing the buyer latitude in presentation while the linen ground and oil medium ensure exceptional longevity. As Grotjahn's market and critical standing have only deepened in the two decades since this canvas was completed, it occupies a meaningful position within his chronology, capturing the Butterfly series at its moment of mature, confident articulation.