Untitled (White Mezzotint) [1st element 1st state] 1995

This print was made by Jasper Johns, using the mezzotint technique. It's all about working from dark to light, scraping away at the surface to reveal images. The process is so physical. The texture in this print is everything. You can see it in the velvety blacks and the way the light catches on the surface. It’s almost like you could reach out and feel the marks that Johns made. Then I spot a bicycle. What's with that? Are we riding toward the sun, or away from it? I can feel the texture even in the small square, like it’s been burnished in by hand. It is a really beautiful, if slightly creepy, little world. I think of Cy Twombly a lot when I look at Johns. Twombly’s work, too, is full of scribbles and marks that feel so raw and immediate. But it's like they’re both speaking this secret language that only art can understand. And that is the real beauty, isn't it? How we are always talking to each other across time, across surfaces.