Untitled

This untitled woodblock print situates Ariadna Abadal Lloret within the contemporary cohort of European printmakers who have adopted Japanese mokuhanga methods as a non-toxic alternative to oil-based relief printing. Working from the Art Print Residence near Barcelona, where she teaches and hosts visiting artists, Abadal Lloret produces work that depends on the slow, sequential build-up of color through multiple carved blocks pressed by hand onto [washi](/glossary/washi) with a [baren](/glossary/baren). The print's untitled status is consistent with her practice of releasing work without prescriptive labels, leaving the viewer to read the surface on its own material terms: the absorbed quality of water-based pigment in the paper fiber, the registration of successive impressions, the wood grain occasionally visible through lighter passages of color. Her body of work reflects both the inherited Catalan printmaking tradition of her parents Claudia Lloret and Jordi Roses, and a contemporary international network of practitioners committed to environmentally conscious studio methods. The piece exemplifies how the mokuhanga vocabulary has been carried into abstract, non-narrative contemporary practice.