Green Angel 2 [1st state] 1997

Jasper Johns made this print, "Green Angel 2," with lithography, a process where the artist draws on a stone or metal plate and then transfers that image onto paper. Look at the bold black and white shapes. The way Johns uses stripes and lines, it’s like he’s building a world out of patterns. He's got these negative spaces, the white areas, that feel just as important as the parts that are inked. I can imagine Johns, in his studio, thinking hard about how to make something new out of something old. It reminds me of Rauschenberg's layering of images and text. There's something about that generation of artists, always pushing to see how much they can get away with. And, in the end, aren’t we all just playing with shapes and colors, trying to make sense of the world in our own way?