Jasper Johns-Target with Four Faces

If you look closely at the Target, you can see the newsprint that he used to collage on the canvas

as a bottom layer. The method of wax encaustic allowed him to really build up a tactile surface

that reveals the slow and measured process by which the work was made. The faces were cast

over the course of several months. He used a friend and neighbor as a model. The faces are

abstracted by their having been cropped at the eyes. They become a kind of banner above the

target.

“In addition to Green Target (1955) – Johns’ first work featuring this motif – White Target (1958),

Gray Target (1958) and Black Target (1959), all of which were made in encaustic [hot wax], there

is also a target made of a malleable metallic clay called Sculp-metal, as well as numerous prints

and drawings, not to mention several small-scale paintings.