I want to see you, even if it's a dream

The title quotes a classical waka phrase — roughly 'I would meet you in waking life or in dreams' — drawn from the love poetry tradition associated with the Kokin Wakashū, framing the image within a literary register of yearning at the threshold between dream and waking experience. At 71 × 100 cm, the work sits at the upper end of intaglio scale, requiring a copper plate and press bed of considerable dimension and sustained tonal layering across a single pull. The combination of etched line and aquatint suggests a program in which fine linear description is set against broad fields of granular plate tone, the latter built through staged acid bites under rosin or spray-ground resists. Aoyagi's training at Nihon University College of Art and its graduate program situates her within a Tokyo intaglio lineage that emphasizes technical rigor in plate preparation. Selection for the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025 records an early instance of her work entering juried public exhibition at this scale.