Untitled

A second untitled work in Wozniak's mokuhanga sequence, this print continues his research into the gestural mark as it passes from drawing through carving to impression. Mokuhanga's water-based inks allow for [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) — the graduated wiping of pigment across the block before printing — and for the layered transparency that distinguishes it from oil-based relief traditions. Wozniak typically exploits this transparency by overprinting blocks rather than building up with opaque colour, producing surfaces in which earlier impressions remain partly visible beneath later ones. The absorbent Nagashizuki [washi](/glossary/washi) he works with, related to the papermaking method he has researched alongside printing, registers each pass with a soft tonal weight rather than a hard mechanical edge. Within his wider practice, which spans planographic lithography (both stone and aluminium) and woodcut, the untitled mokuhanga prints occupy a particular role: they are studies in how a single sustained technique can produce variation through process alone, without recourse to subject matter or title.