Untitled 2001

This print by Jasper Johns is a real head-scratcher, isn't it? It's like he's building up a world, piece by piece, out of different textures and images in a way that feels totally intuitive, yet carefully planned. I can imagine Jasper Johns, with his sleeves rolled up, deeply immersed in the alchemy of mark-making, layering each element with intention and curiosity. It's all these different images and textures together, that gives it that strange, dreamy feeling. The cross hatching of the lines in the foreground feels like a coded language that I can't quite understand, but I can feel. It connects with the shapes in the upper section of the work in a conversation about form and pattern. Johns is always in dialogue with other artists, and you can really see him playing with some familiar themes here. For him, everything is ambiguous, nothing has a fixed meaning – it's all up for grabs.