Deadlock 1947 - 1948

Edward Landon made this print, called 'Deadlock', using a screenprinting process. The shapes kind of interlock like bones or weird machine parts, all done in a limited palette. There’s something about the flatness of the printmaking process that turns these almost anatomical forms into something more abstract. Look at how the light hits those bone-like shapes, creating these stark white highlights, against the slightly sickly, dark blue ground. There’s a kind of violence in the way they’re piled up, but the overall effect is more like a puzzle, or a strange kind of formal dance. It reminds me a bit of the way Phillip Guston would arrange forms in his later work, a real clash between representation and abstraction. Ultimately, It’s this very ambiguity that makes the image so compelling, this constant shifting between different interpretations.