Personage 1950

Editor: This is "Personage" by John Wells. It's difficult to put a date on it, but it's currently held at the Tate. The etching is delicate, almost ghostly. How do you interpret this work, especially given its abstract nature? Curator: The power of abstraction is how it touches deeply embedded cultural memories. Do you see the echoes of a figure, almost a shamanic form? It evokes, for me, the symbolic language of ancient standing stones. Editor: I do see the figure now that you mention it, but I'm not sure about shamanic forms, it seems too modern for that, doesn't it? Curator: Perhaps. Yet the persistence of archetypal imagery, the human figure deconstructed and rebuilt, speaks to our enduring need to connect with something primal. This abstract figure becomes a vessel for our collective unconscious. Editor: I see what you mean; it's fascinating how abstraction can both obscure and reveal. Curator: Precisely. We project onto the image. It becomes a mirror reflecting our own cultural and psychological landscapes.