Untitled work by Alex Mankiewicz

Contemporary mokuhanga has undergone a sustained revival since the late twentieth century, supported by institutions such as the Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory (MI-LAB) in Kawaguchi-ko and the International Mokuhanga Conference, which began in 2011. Practitioners working today, including Mankiewicz, occupy a position distinct from both Edo-period ukiyo-e and the early-twentieth-century shin-hanga and sōsaku-hanga movements. This untitled work belongs to that current phase of the medium's history. Artists in this generation generally carve and print their own blocks rather than relying on the publisher–artist–carver–printer division of labour that characterised earlier periods, and they often combine traditional techniques with imagery drawn from contemporary visual culture. Mankiewicz's illustration background aligns with this pattern: he brings the visual habits of contemporary editorial work into the constraints of a four-hundred-year-old printmaking tradition.