Peel of Print 7

Peel of Print 7 rejoins the denser register of the series's opening prints, but with the procedural understanding accumulated across the intervening sheets. The peeled passages here carry the trace of earlier experiments — controlled lifts that hold edges, contingent tears that follow adhesion, exposed substrate occupying figure rather than ground. Mixed-media construction permits Abe to deposit material that will respond predictably or unpredictably to peeling, and the seventh print's image is built from a calibrated mixture of both. The work is consistent with a contemporary Japanese print pedagogy that emphasizes process and material conditions as legitimate subjects of the print, distinct from but indebted to the earlier sōsaku-hanga commitment to artist-controlled production. Abe's professional context at Joshibi University of Art and Design's Department of Oil Painting, Printmaking Course, places this series within an active teaching practice; the prints function both as autonomous works and as demonstrations of a research program in printmaking.