Hanga
A musical note with a rainbow-colored tail and a black circle at the bottom, labeled 'Dead Weight/A.P 2016'. by Charles Spitzack — Japanese woodblock print

A musical note with a rainbow-colored tail and a black circle at the bottom, labeled 'Dead Weight/A.P 2016'.

by Charles Spitzack

Description

A conceptual composition pairing a musical note trailed by a rainbow-colored gradient with a solid black circle weighing the form down. The notation "A.P" identifies the impression as an artist's proof — a print pulled outside the numbered edition for the artist's retention, following standard printmaking convention. Producing the prismatic tail by hand requires either separately registered blocks for each band of color or careful bokashi blending across a single block face, with each pass aligned through the kentō registration system. The juxtaposition of buoyant, color-saturated sound against the dense black solid enacts the title's metaphor visually rather than narratively. As one of Spitzack's earlier dated prints, the work reflects a graphic and conceptual sensibility — flat planes, isolated motifs, symbolic relationships between elements — that recurs in his later figurative and landscape compositions within the contemporary American mokuhanga movement.

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Frequently Asked Questions

A musical note with a rainbow-colored tail and a black circle at the bottom, labeled 'Dead Weight/A.P 2016'. was created by Charles Spitzack.