Untitled work by Alex Mankiewicz

This untitled mokuhanga print foregrounds the specific material qualities of Alex Mankiewicz's medium. Mokuhanga differs from Western relief printing in fundamental ways: the pigments are water-based, the paper is dampened before printing, and the impression is taken by hand with a baren rather than through a press. These conditions produce a particular surface — pigment absorbed into the fibers of the washi rather than sitting on top, edges that can be either crisp or softened by bokashi, and registration achieved through carved kentō marks rather than mechanical alignment. Mankiewicz, who trained in Kyoto before establishing a practice that now spans Japan and Australia, works within these constraints as a contemporary graphic artist rather than a copyist of historical styles. His prints draw on the technical inheritance of nishiki-e — the multi-block color print developed in eighteenth-century Edo — while applying it to imagery that belongs to contemporary illustration. The print operates in two registers at once: a traditional process applied to contemporary graphic ends.