From Eddingsville 1965 c. 1965

Jasper Johns made this print ‘From Eddingsville’ in 1965. I imagine him in the studio, working with layers and layers of lithographic washes. The blacks and grays seep into the paper, creating a dense, almost impenetrable surface. You can sense Johns' internal struggle, trying to resolve the composition, but the image resists clarity. Is it a landscape? A still life? The words scattered across the surface offer clues but ultimately dissolve into abstraction. I wonder, was he thinking of the places he had been? Or was this a way of thinking about the process of memory? There’s a physical quality to the print, from the texture of the paper to the weight of the ink. The smudges, the blurs, the imperfections—they all contribute to the feeling of something unearthed, something both familiar and strange. It reminds me of Rauschenberg’s transfers. These artists are in constant conversation with one another. Ultimately, it's the ambiguity that makes this piece so compelling, inviting us to linger, to question, to find our own meaning within its depths.