The Witnessed Image 1959

Kenneth Kerslake made this print, The Witnessed Image, by pushing a metal plate, probably copper or zinc, through a press. The image emerges from a process, and it feels like a record of its own making. There's a real density in the etching, a murkiness conjured by the mass of hatched lines and layered forms. Nothing quite emerges but everything feels alive. Take a look at the cluster of shapes in the centre, see how a bulbous form leads to a vertical line with two dots. Is it an eye? Is it a nose? Is it neither? The textures feel like they’re breathing, with areas of deeper darkness and lighter shades. Kerslake’s contemporary, Leon Golub, similarly worked with etched and reworked surfaces to create his signature brutalist prints and paintings. Both artists embraced ambiguity, revelling in the power of suggestion over the confines of fixed meaning.