Dappled Light I

The first in Wilhide Justin's Dappled Light series, this mokuhanga on washi translates the artist's photographic observation of light filtering through foliage into a layered woodblock composition. Characteristic of her practice, the image likely renders shifting patterns of illumination — pools of brightness against shadowed ground — achieved through multiple color blocks and the graduated bokashi gradients for which Japanese woodcut is known. The absorbent surface of washi pulls ink unevenly in ways that reinforce the visual sensation of light in motion. Where Western abstraction might rely on gesture, Wilhide Justin's approach is grounded in close observation of natural phenomena, formalized through the disciplined registration of mokuhanga.