Untitled

Alex Mankiewicz's untitled prints are made between two locations — Kyoto and Byron Bay — and the dual geography is part of the work's frame. Kyoto provided his training in mokuhanga and continues to anchor his technical practice; Byron Bay, on the eastern coast of Australia, extends that practice into a different visual environment. The mokuhanga method itself travels well: blocks of cherry or shina, water-based pigments, [baren](/glossary/baren), dampened [washi](/glossary/washi) — the equipment is portable and the process can be sustained in either studio. What changes is the source material the prints respond to. Mankiewicz approaches both contexts with the graphic sensibility of an illustrator, looking for the few elements in any scene or subject that will carry the image when reduced to printable shapes. The result is a body of work that resists easy regional categorization. The print belongs neither to a Japanese nor an Australian tradition strictly; it belongs to a contemporary mokuhanga practice that uses the medium as a vehicle for an internationally shaped graphic eye.